Fitness Friday: Cosmetic Chaos

Hello everyone, we hope you had a good week! We wanted to point out how beauty and personal products have gone awry on us and bring to you some of the knowledge I have found over the course of two and a half years. It started when my husband, Bobby, saw that I was obsessing over the food we ate and sarcastically said, “If it’s in our food, what makes you think your beauty products are any better”. Needless to say, he was right, and I obsessively started to look into hair care, moved onto beauty, personal care, and home cleaning products due to curiosity. This was when I first realized I had a passion for health and beauty. Bobby has been so supportive in all my beliefs and research, even when I wanted to thrown everything away, and found organic products to replace them. We don’t regret what we found out and want to share our findings with the world. Today we’re going to talk about harmful chemicals in our products.

Our skin is the bodies largest organ, it absorbs whatever goes on it right into our bloodstream. Most everyone knows that there is petroleum jelly in some products like Vics vapor rub, lipstick, etc., but think about the name “petroleum”, as in, the precursor to gasoline. You wouldn’t bathe in gasoline, and yet, it is somehow acceptable to put petroleum byproducts in our food / cosmetics. There are chemical toxins in more products than you could even imagine. According to the David Suzuki Foundation, “U.S. researchers report that one in eight of the 82,000 ingredients used in personal care products are industrial chemicals, including carcinogens, pesticides, reproductive toxins, and hormone disruptors”. Not only that, but there are plasticizers, a chemical that keeps concrete soft, degreasers, removes grime from auto parts, and surfactants, which reduces surface tension in water for things like paint. This is just the tip of the ice berg, but I will try to give you a general idea, and as always will post all of my sources below for you to do some more in depth reading for yourself. These chemicals are even found in newborns’ blood of their umbilical cords. Environmental Working Group conducted studies that screened over 400 chemicals, 287 toxins found and of those 217 are neurotoxic, 208 are known to cause birth defects and developmental deficiencies.

So what is the alternative to the chemical filled main stream products? We have found various sources to get our products from. We get shampoo, conditioner, and hair styling products from www.justnaturalskincare.com. Toothpaste, mouthwash, and deodorant from www.miessence.com or www.refreshorganicbeauty.com. Finally, we get body wash and shaving creams from www.herbariasoap.com. My absolute favorite clean company is Miessence, if you can afford it (Shipping from Australia isn’t cheap). I spent months researching companies’ ingredients and sending emails to the companies, so far they are the best. They have sales so I’d advise to stock up during those times and you can sign up for their newsletters to get coupons. I don’t wear makeup anymore, but I would advise Miessence or RMS (http://www.rmsbeauty.com/shop/). If you want your pets to live the clean life, you can also get pet care products from Herbaria. I have also tried Natural Way Organics (www.naturalwayorganics.net), which works really well.

Switching to these products will take a couple weeks to rinse off all the toxins off your hair and body, so keep an open mind. You can think of it as washing off thick glue, that’s what it feels like when you’re applying it anyway. Believe me, I used Nexxus and Tresemme products for a period, I have noticed a huge difference and will never go back to those chemical filled products. Remember that these products are natural, so deodorant may have to be applied a few times depending on how often you sweat, but this is the nature of the beast when you wish to not expose yourself to toxic chemicals.

Cosmetics and personal care products are highly unregulated, which is something that definitely needs to change. If you’re interested in helping, www.ewg.org/take-action, you can make a difference, and every signature counts! This is a very helpful link for researching an ingredient, www.ewg.org/skindeep/, they have a huge database of toxic chemicals and brands with ratings. I understand that avoiding all these chemicals are very hard and stressful to do, but there are organic companies that are working hard to promote good products. Some of which are Miessence, Just Natural Skincare, Herbaria and Natural Way Organics. No, not all of these products are perfect, but they are way better than the ones on the shelf at WalMart. Just remember to read labels like you would for your food. If you want to be more cost effective then you can make your own soaps, lotions, perfumes, scrubs, etc. I encourage your feedback and would love to exchange more healthy companies. The more people know, the better chance we have changing not only our well being, but also our environment. Thank you for reading, have a great weekend, and we look forward to seeing you next time!

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