‘Greener’ beauty finds: From castor oil products to Kitsch shampoo bars and Manucurist home nail kit  

Is there a person left on the planet who hasn’t by now heard of the virtues of castor oil?

If social media is to be believed it is the answer to almost every skincare problem and more. 

And while it certainly has benefits as an ingredient in beauty products, I think one of the main reasons its popularity has soared is that people are increasingly looking for more natural, gentle and greener products – and I’m one of them. 

Over the year so far there have been a few products that I’ve tried that are more environmentally conscious and have a natural ethos behind them that have impressed me, so I’ve rounded up my verdicts in this article.

Manucurist Review

I’m going to start with a brand that is growing fast and for good reason and that’s Manucurist.

The French nail care business aims to provide a greener and more gentle alternative to gel nails, traditional polishes and nail polish removers. 

I had long given up on having Shellac or gel nail treatments done because they just butchered my nails. Whether I got the gel removed professionally or I removed it myself at home, my nails were left really weak and flaky afterwards.  

I am also one of those really clumsy people who can chip a regular nail manicure before I’ve even left the salon so it meant I didn’t really paint my nails or get them done at all. 

When I first noticed Manucurist on social media, I was drawn to the whole concept of a gentler solution for nails. And their hero product is their gel nail kit. 

A gentler gel nail manicure

You can buy what they call their Green Flash starter kit and each one comes with an LED lamp, polish remover clips, base coat, top coat, and an acetone-free polish remover, and then you can decide how many colors you want to add as part of your kit. 

A basic kit which comes with everything I just listed plus one colour is priced around £100 or US $100.

I absolutely love their range of colors, there are so many to choose from and you can use either the range designed to be used with the UV lamp, or just they have a fast-dry polish which doesn’t need a lamp and in general I’ve found all their products so much better for my nails.  

They also have an all-in-one range of nail polishes blended with nail care ingredients to coat your nails and make them shine while treating them, and they’re really good.

The Active Bright polish is my favorite from that range – it makes your nails look so shiny and healthy but it also immediately strengthens them and that’s just one coat.  

If you’re using the gel kit you start with the base coat, put each hand under the lamp for 60 seconds at a time, you add 2 rounds of color and then a top coat so all in all it takes me about 25 minutes to complete it. 

Less damage but with a catch

Being clumsy and also being an avid cleaner I only got about four or five days out of the gel polish before a couple of my nails started chipping but that was still a win for me. It meant I could polish my nails at home before a weekend and not chip them horribly within 24 hours which is what would usually happen. 

But it was removing the gel that was the revelation because you just cut up some flat cotton pads and apply some remover to each, press them down on your nails and secure them with the clips, leave it on for just a minute or so and the gel just peels off.

The best bit is my nails are fine afterwards. A little bit drier but nothing close to a traditional gel nail polish. 

This is a brand that has got me back into painting my nails again without causing the same amount of damage. The downsides are I didn’t feel the gel nails were as long lasting as some of the traditional options out there, but that’s the trade-off with the gentler ingredients. 

Castor-oil-based products

Next, I want to share a few castor-oil based products I’ve been using lately. 

Like a lot of folks I’ve started experimenting with castor oil in my routine, initially using just a simple organic cold-pressed oil as occlusive in my nighttime routine around my eyes in place of Vaseline to lock in moisture.  

And with castor oil getting the seal of approval from skin microbiome specialist Dr Thomas Hitchcock when we talked about skin health on my channel – he said it allows your skin to breath and behaves like your skin’s own natural oils – I was even more keen to try it out. 

So I distilled some oil into little spray tube to make it easier to use and I found it great on its own but the only thing that put me off is the smell. I went to bed smelling like cooking oil and it was getting to me.  

Dermelect Skin Repair Balm

So, more recently I switched to a castor oil based balm from Dermelect. They call it a Repair Balm and it’s around £30 or $40 for a tube but you only need a tiny amount so I expect this to last me a long time. 

Today’s featured products

The primary ingredient with this Dermelect balm is castor oil and they’ve also added in a few other oils like Abysinnian Oil which is high in fatty acids as is evening primrose oil which is also included. 

And it’s such a multitasker, just like the raw castor oil, you can use it anywhere.  

This one is fragrance free, I find it’s completely non irritating, and primarily I use it around my lips and eyes and my nails sometimes too.  So it’s really good stuff if, like me, you want to enjoy the benefits of castor oil without the smell and in a formula that’s easier to apply.

Kitsch solid shampoo bars

Next, you might have seen on social media ads for Kit-sch solid shampoo bars and the idea is you save on plastic bottles when you go for a solid shampoo and these ones are free from things some consumers might look to avoid like parabens, silicones, sulfates and artificial fragrance. 

I liked the idea of a fuss-free solid shampoo and I bought the Castor Oil shampoo bar and the shea butter conditioning bar (which smells lovely incidentally). You put them in little mesh bags to keep them in shape and you can easily hang them up in your shower. And the idea is you rub some between your hands and then wash or condition as usual.  

And to keep it brief I would say that for one to two consecutive washes they work really well on my hair. They’re nourishing and hydrating without being heavy and my hair dries light and bouncy.  

But if I tried using it three times in a rowI notice a bit of a build-up – my hair looks a little greasy. That won’t be the same for everyone but it is for me.

I’d also say the shampoo bar stays more solid and is longer lasting than the conditioner which tends to go a bit squelchy. Or mine has. So that means at £15 or $14 a bar, it’s the shampoo that’s offering the better value.  

The other thing to note is because you have to rub them for a period of time to get enough lather I end up taking longer in the shower when I use these bars than I do with a regular shampoo so that has to be weighed up against the packaging saving too. 

Queen Musia Mascara

The next products is a mascara from a beauty start-up brand called Queen Musia based in California.

They only have a couple of products in their range but I was keen to try their mascara which includes a lash growth extract made from plankton.  

The ingredients are said to be 95% natural. Now I guess when we talk about natural products it’s important to remember that not all chemicals are harmful and we need a certain level of preservatives to keep things safe and that’s where regulatory bodies come in to play at the end of the day. 

But in using more natural ingredients I do think they’ve put together a nourishing mascara that still performs well . It doesn’t lift and lengthen lashes like some of the top-tier traditional mascaras, but I’m sticking with it because it has helped slightly thicken my lashes.

I feel there’s a little more body in there and they’re not separating so much when I apply mascara. 

 The clever little brush is made using a castor oil derived material and so it’s another one that I like the ethos behind it.  

It’s priced at $36, but shipping costs can be high outside of the US so it would be good to see this being made more widely available before too long.  

Oil-based cleansing balms

This is the year I’ve got really in to using natural oil-based cleansing balms instead of face wash or traditional cleansers and there are a few lovely ones that do a great job of cleansing the skin of make-up without stripping it or leaving it greasy so I’ve linked my favorites below. Using oil-based cleansers has really helped my underlying skin hydration. 

Nerra Bathhouse Ritual Set

I’m going to end with a little splash of luxury because I am really quite taken with this bathing set from an entrepreneur who wanted to introduce the Hammam-style of bathing she grew up with in Tunisia to a larger audience.

And the result is this lovely set from her brand called Nerra, made in France, and based around natural-origin ingredients.  

The range consists of an oil-based foam that you start off with to prep the skin, there’s a gentle exfoliating glove which is enough to remove the dead dry skin cells without being aggressive to your skin, a body wash and then the most heavenly-scented lighter than air oil.

It would make for a dream gift and actually the foam or oil in isolation are fantastic products in their own right. The foam is out of stock at the time of filming which doesn’t surprise me because it’s brilliant.  

An ideal gift

It costs around £21 or $26 and is made largely from olive oil and coconut oil so it’s hydrating while priming your skin for light, microbiome-friendly exfoliation once a week to get the dry skin off areas like your knees, elbows and feet.  

The wash is more expensive at £29 or $36, but it’s a nice treat. It lathers well, the jasmine wood version smells great, and it uses pink clay for cleansing, but is designed to hydrate with squalane, hyaluronic acid, collagen and algae.

I often just use the foam and exfoliating glove on their own and then use the body wash separately – and I spray the oil on slightly damp skin when I get out of the shower so it spreads easily and goes further, and it is amazing for being able to hydrate without being greasy. 

The body oil is £57 or $72 so it’s a bit more pricey but the set would make for a great luxe gift and combined it costs £115 or $145 which is a good price for the quality of the full range.