What's in your beauty products?

Perfumed whale excreta: That’s basically what your favourite perfume may be, you know. Whale excreta contains a substance called ambergris, which floats around in the ocean once it is expelled from the whale’s body, and turns into a waxy solid substance upon reaching the shore. Ambergris has a sweet and earthy odour, and is apparently useful in elongating a perfume’s shelf life. The silver lining, however, is that it is only legal in France and Switzerland as of now. Famed perfumes like Givenchy Amarige, Chanel No. 5 and Gucci Guilty are said to carry this substance in their ingredients.

Finding Nemo in your shampoo: You know there is a very high chance of that happening, to be honest with you. Crystallised guanine, which is just a fancy term for fish scales, is basically what gives your shampoo its shiny look. Even your shimmery makeup gets its shimmer from fish scales.Brands like Schwarzkopf and Dolce & Gabbana are known to use this very fishy substance.

Slime on your face: The slow process of ageing can be reversed with some of the slowest creatures in our environment, snails. Anti-ageing facial creams, which are considered to be miracle beauty products, get their magic from something known as mucin extract, which is found in snail slime. Mucin extract us a complex of proteins, glycolic acids and elastics, which helps in cell regeneration and moisturising your skin.

Beetled lipsticks: We're sorry to tell you this, but we have very bad news for our vegetarian fashionista friends. You might just be eating crushed beetles through your lipstick. Cochineal beetles, which are commonly found in South and Central American countries, excrete a certain red chemical called carminic acid. This, when mixed with calcium salts creates a natural red dye called carmine, which is used in lipsticks. Even the process to create this dye is inhumane. The insects are drowned in hot water, dried and pulverised to make the die. Brands like Iba, Incolor, Boots, L'Oreal, MAC, Rimmel, Chanel, Dior, Clarins, Elizabeth Arden are known to use this dye.

Creamed bird excreta: Don’t worry, we don’t mean your regular pigeon shit. Oh no, facial creams are made of fancier stuff than that. Super expensive facial creams contain nightingale excrement due to its high content of nitrogen-rich urea and guanine. Guanine is an amino acids known to help bind moisture to the skin. This is what helps in making your skin glow. Umm..EW!