Sejaa Pure Skincare by Gisele Bündchen

Celebrities seem to be cross training quite a bit as of late. They're starting clothing lines, designing signature fragrances, endorsing pills, and even creating their own organic skin care lines. Model Miranda Kerr launched the natural skincare brand Kora Organics, which was recently certified organic by Ecocert. And now Gisele Bündchen has stepped up, founding Sejaa Pure Skincare.

Brazilian born Gisele has been involved in socio-environmental causes since she first raised funds to fight deforestation in the Amazon and Atlantic Rainforest. She's started a green blog, planted trees in Horizontina, Brazil, made the list of celebrities who donated the most to charity in 2011, and visited Kenya on a goodwill mission in 2012. It doesn't seem too surprising that her next move was to start a natural skincare line. So just how pure is Sejaa?

Her product lineup is simple, and only includes a day cream, night cream and mud mask. Looks good so far, right? Let's look at the day cream first. The first ingredient in the day cream is aloe, which is a soothing, moisturizing base. Gisele also includes some skin nourishers like safflower oil, algae extract, argan oil and shea butter. But the formula goes downhill with the use of the two preservatives ethylhexylglycerine and phenoxyethanol. Ethylhexylglycerine is a skin and eye irritant, while phenoxyethanol has been shown to be a reproductive toxin, a skin irritant and an ovarian toxin.

Let's look at her night cream. The first ingredient in the night cream is water, suggesting it is probably less moisturizing than the day cream, which is unusual. However, I commend the addition of royal jelly and green tea extract, two beneficial ingredients for your skin. Also included in the night cream is retinyl palmitate, which is not present in the day cream. Because of its photosensitizing effects, this was an extremely good choice. Again, the night cream is marred by the preservatives ethylhexylglycerine and phenoxyethanol.

Her mud mask is the same sad story. It is chock full of  Bentonite and  Montmorillonite clays, which are both fabulously antibacterial and detoxifying. However, she regrettably uses the same preservatives again.

I want to like this skincare line, but her use of suspect ingredients to preserve the formulas is not particularly enticing. How about using the safe and effective radish root ferment as a preservative, Gisele? 

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Images courtesy of: 

1. Mario Testino

2. Vogue

3. Sejaa Skincare