“You Smell Like a Hippie” Is a Compliment Now

“Natural” is now “Big Natural.” Conglomerates (like Unilever) are snapping up independent brands (like Schmidt's Naturals) by the dozen, and big-box chains like Target are dedicating entire sections to green products. Naturally (sorry), this is great, right? Almost. The dark green underbelly of green grooming is that the consumer has to work even harder to know what's in a bottle. With any booming segment comes misleading marketing—but a “clean” and “honest” category can be especially hard to navigate because what constitutes a natural product is mostly unregulated. Labels come with all kinds of near meaningless terms, like, you know, “natural.” So to help you through this garden of confusion, we not only tested hundreds of items to see if they actually work but rejected anything that doesn't contain a large percentage of naturally derived, plant-based ingredients. Once you know what's legit, you can choose from loads of effective products. Or you can just ditch your current bottles and replace them with our favorites. (Remember to recycle!) —Garrett Munce

Trust Us: Even the Deodorant Works

It wasn’t that I smelled bad while wearing deodorant—“natural” or not—it was that I smelled like a corpse that smelled bad even for corpses. For years I’d use natural deodorant off and on, but I’d always go back to pore-gunging antiperspirant. Schmidt’s changed everything. Three out of three experts I talked to—cosmetic chemist James Hammer, Schmidt’s Naturals founder Jaime Schmidt herself, and my mom—think it’s partly the odor-absorbing and totally natural main ingredient, magnesium hydroxide (Milk of Magnesia, basically), that did it. Deodorants with lots of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) or charcoal (like Schmidt’s brand-new Charcoal + Magnesium) work just as well, which is to say: They actually do what they say they do. —Ross McCammon

Let Your Hair Flow (Then Remember to Groom It)

In the realm of self-care, keeping my near-shoulder-length hair healthy has never felt as crucial as getting eight hours of sleep and purchasing weird pants every few months. I couldn't recall the last time I used shampoo, and my morning regimen consisted of drugstore conditioner and a rough towel-dry. It worked fine when my cut was short—but long hair magnifies poor choices. Like a bachelor who consumes nothing but pizza rolls and Bud Light, over time my locks looked spiritless and more than a little greasy.

So I called up celebrity hairstylist Makiko Nara—responsible for keeping hair-Jesus Jared Leto's lustrous mane red-carpet ready—for advice. She told me to put my hair on an organic diet stat. “A lot of standard shampoos and conditioners include silicones,” says Nara, “which make it easy to wash and gives you smooth hair.” But there's a catch: Silicones can build up in your strands, sealing out important nutrients. “After a lot of use, your hair doesn't absorb natural oils and moisturize as well,” she says, which can leave long locks damaged and dull and is why Nara avoids using them on her clients. I started my cleanse with a vinegar rinse to strip my hair to its pure, un-siliconed state. Then, on Nara's advice, I put in a 100-percent-natural hair mask, basically a very intense conditioner, applied a small amount of S.oil natural oil to the ends—and went from aforementioned bachelor to Botticelli angel overnight. No longer weighed down by gloppy conditioner, my mane was softer, shinier, and lighter than ever before. The final touch was my new blow-dryer, the secret weapon of long-hair care. Contrary to popular belief, blow-drying and brushing properly conditioned locks can help them stay moisturized and frizz-less. “If you blow-dry your hair regularly,” says Nara, “you might not need to take care of it anymore—sometimes you don't even need to use products.” So the next time you come back from the organic-food store, take a hard look at your shower caddy and ask yourself: Am I letting my 'do live its best life? —Samuel Hine

Four New Brands You Can Believe In

Sometimes it takes a small, agile company to improve on the corporate focus groups. Most of these brands hit the market only in the past few years, but their overnight success represents shifting demand. What really makes them special, though, is the dialed-up potency of their products and their nontoxic formulas.