How many toxic chemicals do you slather on your face each morning?
Yep, another hippie rant. It has been a while since I have been dabbling with the idea of eliminating all toxic chemicals completely, even if they have no basis in scientific fact or research.
Call it .. being cautious for cautious sake.
Anyway, it wasn’t until May of 2013 that I took the plunge and really got rid of everything, even my beloved makeup go-tos that did not pass the test.
Afterwards, I read There’s Lead In Your Lipstick (excellent book) and I thought I’d share the few pertinent facts that shocked me while reading it.
(P.S. A little lead in your lipstick is okay because your body discharges lead on a daily basis, as we ingest lead in everything including our tap water.)
The following facts refer to regulations and rules in the U.S.:
The average woman uses a dozen personal care products everyday …with 126 different chemicals which are toxic
Even before we put on our makeup, 126 different chemicals have come into contact with our hair, eyes and skin.
…between 85,000 and 100,000 chemicals are used in the marketplace today; 85 percent of those chemicals have never been tested for human health impacts.
…”safe for human use” simply means that the product didn’t give the test subjects a terrible rash five minutes after they smeared it on.
This one was shocking.. but not that shocking. Canada is not any better, but we are slightly more regulated.
I leave you with the appendix from the book that lists out the top 20 chemicals to avoid, also conveniently listed online by Femme Toxic and seems (at a quick glance) to match up to the information provided in the book: There’s Lead In Your Lipstick (Pages 239 and 240).
OTHER RECOMMENDED READING
4 Comments
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save. spend. splurge.
I use Green Beaver for sunscreen.
For shampoo I use John Masters organics, conditioner as well.
I don’t use laundry detergent, I use soap nuts.
For soap I use Savon de Marseilles.
I still wear makeup but now I wear bareMinerals and Jane Iredale eyeshadow and blush
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NZ Muse
I try to let as little touch my skin as possible, to be honest. No cleanser, moisturiser only if I’m feeling dry. But I need to get better about using sunscreen (even though I hate the feeling of it so much).
I used to be constantly in search of the perfect products, even using different cleansers on only certain parts of my face, etc.
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save. spend. splurge.
I have such problems with products which is the reason why I am so stressed out about all of it. I have hormonal acne but I also have a lot of skin sensitivity issues.
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This sounds hard to do. I got rid of everything with “fragrance” when I had an unexplained rash. That didn’t help, but I’ve kept doing so ever since. The worst mourning of this was my conditioner (which had a fragrance I really loved), but once I learned that vinegar works just as well for me and is super cheap, that made it easy to never go back.
I also was looking for a spray sunscreen to encourage myself to actually use it every day and I found one on a low-toxicity list. It’s no longer on such lists because even things that are safe for your skin are not necessarily safe for you to inhale. But I still use it, I just mostly spray it away from my face and hold my breath at the end.
So what kinds of things DO you use now? I use Dr. Bronner’s soap for my soap and shampoo and vinegar for my conditioner. I don’t wear make-up any more except when I remember for special occasions.
But some of the things I use are probably still questionable: I use fragrance-free laundry detergent and hand lotion plus one of the hippie dish soaps. I use one of the plain toothpastes (without the added toxic fancy ingredients like tooth whitener or whatever) but I just found a bad ingredient in there anyway.