It’s been two weeks, and as promised in the first part of this post, I have an update on both the Bioré Baking Soda Scrub and Cleanser.

Now I don’t know if it’s because of winter or because I have been really tired lately, but after a wonderful beginning with this product, it started irritating my skin a little. The irritation is limited enough for me not to want to give up on it in the long-term, but enough for me to reconsider using it at this time. I have also considered the possibility that it is just too harsh for the recommended usage of 2-3 times a week for the scrub and daily for the cleanser.

I have also been thinking a lot about using a product from a large company like Bioré and a smaller one, however great the larger company may be. I have been reading up on companies such as Stowaway Cosmetics which, because they are smaller sized, seem to have a better ability to read their reality and adjust to it. Meaning that a small company is much more agile and able to stick to its original principles. So while I trust that reports that Bioré’s parent company has the desire and the will to be a leader in ethics, I trust that smaller companies like Stowaway Cosmetics to be able to more quickly and efficiently make the necessary changes in remaining at the forefront of ethical practices. There are also a lot of implications at the level of the community that I’m still struggling to sort through. In short, wouldn’t a number of smaller cosmetic companies spread throughout the world be better suited to respond to the needs of the members of the community they are located in? These needs would be both personal—a certain range of skin types within a certain specific climate—as well as community-based—using local ingredients, decreasing pollution, creating local jobs and, with people from the same community working on a home-made product, creating stronger bonds of friendship.

More thinking needs to be done about this…

Where does this leave me? I will reduce the frequency with which I use both cleanser and scrub to see if it helps my skin feel less irritated and, instead, just as soft as the first times I used it. If I see no change in my skin, I’ll put them both away until summertime and test them then again.

Recommend? Yes, for now.

Important: I am not an expert when it comes to the environmental effects of products on the environment; I am just a concerned consumer trying to have the least negative impact on the global community. I received these two products complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes.