TB Fontil

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  • For: Beauty in Color
  • Aim: Write a blog post about interesting ingredients.
  • Tone: Fun, spunky, friendly. Think: something that might come from your most adventurous friend.
  • Audience: Skincare enthusiasts who enjoy some oddity. The audience for this site is primarily people of color.

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Inside out beauty: 2 weird ingredients to enhance your beauty game

Few beauty lovers are strangers to the, well… strange beauty trends that come in and out of vogue. For the uninitiated, ingredients like snail slime have been used to increase hair moisture for ages, and for years, beauty bloggers toted the benefits of bee venom on dull or lackluster skin. Whether you’re looking for something to plump your skin, add needed protein to your diet, or increase the sheen in your hair, the people who swear by uncommon ingredients have probably got a suggestion for you.

Here are two of our favorite (and sort of weird) beauty ingredients and a run-down of how to use them in your day to day life.

1. Spirulina

(AKA... seaweed.)

Best uses: eat it, slap it on your hair, or layer it on your skin
The pros: Spirulina is antioxidant-rich, full of protein and fatty acids, and easy on the senses (meaning you won’t taste or smell it).
The cons: Some people break out when they eat it. If that’s you, stop using spirulina until the breakout clears up. If you decide to revisit the ingredient, reintroduce it in very small amounts.

Hair suggestions:
Spirulina works best for people with a thin or lackluster mane that needs a little TLC. That’s not to say you shouldn’t use it if you have strong, healthy hair, of course; everyone can benefit from the nutrients in spirulina, but people with healthier heads should refrain from adding it to their daily or weekly hair routine. Remember, the stronger your hair is, the more likely it is that you already have a healthy protein balance. Adding a protein-rich ingredient like spirulina could offset that balance and cause damage. Despite what most of us want to believe, too much of a good thing can definitely hurt you!

For those of you who think you can benefit from spirulina, try adding the powder to your deep conditioner and using it no more than once a week. Keep track of the condition of your hair – if it doesn’t thrive with weekly treatments, spirulina might not be for you. If it does, keep doing what makes your hair happy!

Topical suggestions:
Like your hair, your skin will appreciate the benefits of spirulina. On top of giving you a healthy dose of nutrients, spirulina can calm acne outbreaks and irritated skin. I’m not promising that it will get rid of your acne, but it can kill the redness in your skin while giving you the glowing complexion that you’ve been looking for all your life.

For those of you who swear by clay masks, try adding spirulina to them. If you make your own masks, replace some of the clay powder with spirulina powder. If you use pre-packaged masks, add spirulina directly to a small amount of your cream. Do so slowly; you don’t want your mask to thicken or dry out.

Meal suggestions:
While spirulina works well topically, it works even better when you consume it. All beauty starts from within, so for truly strong nails and hair or good skin, it can be beneficial to add nutrient-rich ingredients to your diet. A spirulina conditioner can only penetrate your hair shaft so much (and despite doing so, it doesn’t change the makeup of your hair). A daily spirulina smoothie, on the other hand, can make it so that every inch of hair you grow in the future is built using the nutrients in spirulina.

For the best results, toss spirulina powder into a smoothie. For more adventurous beauty-lovers, try Veganinsanity’s protein ball recipe for a fun and amusing way of getting your daily dose in.

2. Placenta

Specifically, we’re talking about sheep placenta, but I’m sure your placenta could be used if you happened to have one (or some?) lying around.

Best uses: slap it on your hair
The pros: Placenta is a hair lifesaver.
The cons: This ingredient isn’t vegan-friendly. At all. And for those of you who are allergic to sheep or lamb, it’s obviously best to avoid it. Use caution when eating it too; abnormal animal products can be hard for your body to process, so your gut or skin might not react well to placenta.

Hair suggestions:
If there’s anything sheep placenta is made for (aside from providing nutrition to sheep fetuses), it’s hair. As a literal sack of nutrients, the placenta is chock-full of goodies that will help your hair, including keratin, a protein that is used to reverse the damage caused by straightening or blowdrying your hair.

Read that again (especially if you use heat on your hair every day or if you’re part of the kinky, curly, coily brigade): sheep placenta can reverse the damage caused by heat.

People with healthy heads of hair should watch out for sheep placenta, however; keratin can cause protein overload and turn beautiful, healthy hair into a limp, mushy mess.

To use placenta, break open a capsule and mix it with your favorite conditioner. You can either go the leave-in or the wash-out route, but washing out the conditioner may be your best bet. After you’ve done so, style as usual.

Topical suggestions:
Don’t believe the claims that placenta increases collagen production. If that’s what you’re looking for, you’re better off buying a quality, low-strength retinoid. That said, if you’re looking for a weird way to moisturize your skin, this could be it. Invest in sheep placenta capsules, break them open, and make use of the powder. For the diy-savvy, mix it into your favorite mask (maybe a spirulina mask?). For the diy-averse, try adding a small amount of it to your night cream. Mix the product in your palm or in a small container separate from your main jar or tube so you don’t impact your entire supply of cream.

Meal suggestions:
Honestly, I wouldn’t eat this. Plenty of people do, and while that’s not a problem, there aren’t any proven benefits to eating sheep placenta. Of course, we know as well as you do that some things work despite not being proven, so if you want to take the sheep placenta plunge, you can! This product usually comes in pill form, which makes eating it a breeze. Do so at your own risk; there might be a slight taste.


If nothing else, these ingredients make a fun conversation piece. Who doesn’t want to talk about alternative uses for sheep placenta at a Zoom party?

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