Prenatal Skincare: Key Ingredients to Avoid During Pregnancy and Where to Find Them

There are few things that make me feel more together than having a solid skincare routine in place. Taking the time each day to care for my skin, and myself makes me feel good for two reasons: 

1. The routine itself allows me to slow down and do something for myself. 

2. The return on my small investment (15 mins morning and evening) is glowing, healthy skin. 

I’ve spent nearly 11 years piecing together the perfect skincare routine. I’ve tried everything from 3 step basic skincare kits to oil cleansing and 10-Step K-Beauty. Each time, discovering some wonderful takeaways, but never truly finding a routine that fit my skin “to a tee”. 

Enter pregnancy. My skin changed drastically and, seemingly, overnight. I went from having pretty good skin (IMO), with the occasional hormonal breakout, to new skin that I barely recognized and had no idea how to treat. Thanks to all of the lovely baby-growing hormones floating around in my body, my skin was changing, rapidly. My skin went from near perfect (for me: clear, hydrated, calm) to bumpy, scaly, itchy and flaky in a matter of days. Then, in a matter of a few more days, I woke up one morning with “pregnancy glow” and clearer skin. 

With my skin experiencing such an extreme variety of changes within such a short amount of time, I was literally on the edge of my seat waiting for the next change to happen. I wondered if I had more changes to prepare for— how would I manage? What would I need to do moving forward to care for my mama-to-be skin? I had no idea. So, I did what I always do when I have a problem that needs solving: I researched. 

What I found was no surprise to me: I would have to change nearly everything about by skincare routine. As a skincare lover, I was kind of bummed because my skincare routine, at the time,  seemed to be working: a K-Beauty inspired daily routine and a facial once per month. However, pregnancy would require tossing a good chunk of my regular products, because they were made with chemicals known to be unsafe for pregnancy.

Fun fact: many of the “harmless” chemicals founds in skincare products are not pregnancy safe. I was stunned to find that many of my go-to skincare acids (like glycolic and salicylic) and vitamins (like vitamin A) were off limits. 

Here’s a list of skincare ingredients to avoid during pregnancy (and where to find them):

• Salicylic Acid & Benzoyl Peroxide (acne treatments, and serums)

• Vitamin A & Retinoids (retinol creams & retinol/vitamin A serums)

• AHAs & BHAs (glycolic acid, salicylic acid, lactic acid)

• Formaldehyde (used as a preservative in some makeup like mascara)

• Hydroquinone (depigmenting/lightening agent found in some skincare products, and sometimes in those that promise “brightening”)

• Phthalates (oils, soaps, shampoos and more)

Coming Clean: My Shift to Pregnancy Safe Beauty with Inner Beauty Cosmetics

Hello, friends (new & old)! I’m Brooke.

I’m a certified nutritionist, founder of nutrition & lifestyle brand Lovewell, model and new mama. With all of those titles, it can be a challenge to balance daily life, and even more challenging to do so in a mindful, healthy way. I’d like to share with you how I came to know Inner Beauty Cosmetics and how this brand has made my mom-preneur journey a little easier and definitely cleaner.

For more than 12 years, I worked in front of the camera, modeling and acting. As talent, it was always vital for me to keep up with appearances.  I paid top dollar for cosmetics and skincare that would give me the results I needed to maintain a “camera-ready” appearance. I worked out. I ate well. After becoming a nutritionist, I invested even more time and energy into creating a healthy lifestyle. So you can imagine my surprise when I became pregnant and learned that many of my “#modelife” and “#wellness” choices were actually pregnancy-health no-no’s.

It was time to make a healthy change. It was time to clean things up. My plan? Remove any and everything that’s not pregnancy-safe from my lifestyle.

As a nutritionist, making changes to my diet was the easy part. I read one book on prenatal nutrition and the rest was history. However, when it came to self-care, skin care and beauty, I was a little lost. As I began my quest for pregnancy-safe beauty, the first thing I learned from my research was that there’s so much “junk” in the products we buy to care for ourselves. I also learned that many of the products being marketed as “healthy” or “natural” contain harsh chemicals that aren’t good for my health—or my baby’s. I sifted through all of my products. I felt like I was throwing away everything! However, after a couple of months, I began to find my happy place with pregnancy-safe products.

That “happy-place” looked something like this:

• No products with long lists of ingredients I can’t pronounce.

• No aluminum—found in many products but most commonly found as the main ingredient in antiperspirant.

• No retinol—Retinol is an A vitamin; it’s imperative to get an adequate amount of vitamin A during pregnancy, but too much vitamin A can be harmful to baby.

• No formaldehyde.

• No AHAs or BHAs—think “nothing that brightens or peels,” as these products have harsh chemicals that the body absorbs. These chemicals can be harmful to baby and can damage the sensitive skin of a pregnant woman.

Keeping this list in mind helped me navigate my personal care during pregnancy and I still use this same list as a compass for purchases as a breastfeeding mom.

Because of its clean, pregnancy-safe ingredient list, Inner Beauty Cosmetics has become a staple in both my self-care and beauty routines. I can rely on the products to perform well—I enjoy wearing the Skin Tint Foundation for work or running an errand; it feels like nothing, like skin! I love to layer on the Stay Calm Lip Balm + Primer and Shine Infusion Lip Oil at the end of my skincare routine as a bit of a “lip treat”.