Ditch The Toxins in Your Skin Care Routine
Alright, I’ll keep this short and serious. You don’t need a long drawn-out speech before getting to the important stuff. I do have a couple of things to say, though. There are toxins everywhere, in so many daily use items you would never imagine. It’s about damn time to start paying attention to what’s in all of those bottles. On the topic of beauty products, I have two (there are MORE!) documentaries to recommend that have WAY more information than I will share here. “Stink!” addresses the obvious, and not-so-obvious chemicals in things that smell, you can find it on YouTube. “Toxic Beauty” reveals unregulated chemicals in beauty products, you can find it free on Tubi or buy/rent it on various streaming services.
1. Make-up Remover
Organic Unrefined Virgin Coconut Oil is a great alternative. Let me tell you WHY you should switch. The last (yes I mean last ever) bottle of make-up remover I purchased, didn’t even have the ingredients on the bottle. I decided to look it up and immediately got pissed off. Here are a FEW of the ingredients and some information about them.
Hexalyne glycol or HGL is an oxygenated solvent derived from acetone. Excuse me? ACETONE?! Warnings and safety advisments for HGL: “can irritate eyes and skin” and “may affect the liver, kidney and nervous system.” Ya’ll…we’re putting that on our face and often our EYES to remove the other gunk we put on before. If that wasn’t bad enough let me tell you about imidazolidinyl urea. Imidazolidinyl urea is a formaldahyde releaser! It breaks down slowly releasing formaldahyde into the product as a way to preserve it. Let me give you one more, disodium cocoamphodiacetate is a surfactant (helps the product spread easier) that is derived from fatty acids in coconut oil. Why couldn’t we just use the coconut oil instead of a synthetic version??
Coconut oil is anti-inflammatory, anti-yeast, and anti-bacterial. It also moisturizes and protects eyelashes! The only downfall to coconut oil is it can clog pores so I do not recommend moisturizing your face with it.
2. Moisturizers
One of my favorite lotions ever USED to be from Bath and Body Works. When I was pregnant I started getting these awful headaches any time I used the lotion or of course, the matching body wash. I decided I couldn’t use them anymore, it’s hard enough being pregnant I didn’t need to add to it. Let me tell you, I am SO glad I stopped. This shit has SEVERAL nasty ingredients. Mineral oil, propylparabin, butylparabin, petrolatum, FRAGRANCE, and more, are all derived from petroleum with a high risk of being contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals. Propylparabin, butylparabin, and fragrance can cause developmental and reproductive harm. They are endocrine disruptors (this means they fuck with your natural hormones), can cause allergic reactions or irritate your skin, and my personal favorite, they are biochemical or cause cellular level changes. WTF?! Those aren’t even HALF of the ingredients. Just throw that poison in the trash. IMMEDIATELY PLEASE!!
There are quite a few oils you can use as a moisturizer, grapeseed, sunflower, hemp seed, almond, and argan oil. If you’re worried about the grease you can always moisturize pre-shower or find an organic company that makes lotions or body butters from these amazing skin nourishing ingredients. I personally like to use organic raw unrefined cocoa butter when my skin is feeling rough. The smell is so scrumptious I could take a bite out of it-I haven’t…yet. The BEST way to keep your skin hydrated though, is to stay hydrated. Drink loads of water and protect your skin if you’re in the elements.
Speaking of elements…
3. Sunscreen
Sunscreen absorbs the UV rays and scatters them before they can harm the skin. This means that your skin needs to absorb the chemical that’s damaging the UV rays. Most commonly used chemicals in sunscreen are avobenzone, oxybenzone, homosalate, and octocrylene. They are all absorbed into your skin versus sitting on top of your skin to block the sun from being absorbed by your skin. These ingredients are STILL being studied for possible effects on the endocrine system including reproductive harm and hormonal disruption. The European Commission found that the current amounts of these chemicals are unsafe and far too high-up to 15% of the finished product. Their recommendations are from 1.4-2.2% and some studies found these chemicals in the skin, blood and even in BREASTMILK for weeks after a single use.
I won’t be putting that shit on mine or my children’s bodies ever again. I recommend using a sunBLOCK versus the sunscreen. Sunblocks usually contain zinc oxide or titanium dioxide. These products sit ON your skin and reflect the sun away from your body. I use a Zinc Oxide based sunblock, my favorites are from Poofy Organics or Badger.
4. Toner
Most facial toners include ingredients like ethanol, denatured alcohol, ethyl alcohol, methanol, benzyl alcohol, isopropyl alcohol. Some even include “fragrance.” Like the moisturizer ingredients ALL of these ingredients are derived from petroleum putting this whole product at a high risk for contamination of cancer-causing chemicals. Not to mention they’re all alcohols, which can cause skin irritation and dry your skin out. You should really be using Rose Water! Rose water contains antioxidants, is anti-inflammatory (reduces redness), can soothe skin irritations, and smells AMAZING! Keep a look out I’ll be updating this post with a recipe to make your own.
5. Dry Shampoo
Look, I’ve been there. Desperately need to do your hair no time to wash and dry it so we turn to this increasingly popular product. I have to tell you though, you need to ditch it. Dry shampoos contain propane, bupane (sometimes both), aluminum, and talc. In case you skipped the last couple of products that talked about this-petroleum products can be contaminated with cancer causing chemicals. Now aluminum is naturally occurring and in SO many things, you might not even consider this one an issue, however, I beg you to reconsider. This is a quote from Hotze Health and Wellness Center: “Aluminum is a widely recognized and known neurotoxin that inhibits more than 200 biologically important functions and causes various adverse effects in plants, animals, and humans. It is a poison that acts on the nervous system and has been linked to several serious health problems. Aluminum accumulates in the kidneys, brain, lungs, liver and thyroid where it competes with calcium for absorption and can affect skeletal mineralization. In infants, this can slow growth. Aluminum attacks your central nervous system. Studies show that toxic metals contribute to brain diseases by producing oxidative stress, and aluminum is one of the worst offenders. Aluminum is linked to degenerative brain diseases.” So aluminum is big nope for me any way I can prevent it’s use.
If you don’t know about talc/talcum powder and how it causes cancer, you do now. I need you to know it is dangerous. Johnson & Johnson is paying at least $100 million to thousands of people in a lawsuit regarding their talcum powder causing cancer. Talc is a very fine particle easy to inhale and dry shampoo is an aerosal spraying those fine powders into the air. Inhaling talcum powder causes sinus inflammation and irritation, and it can even lead to chronic lung diseases.
Lucky for you I have an alternative, you can make your own dry shampoo! All you need is arrowroot powder and unsweetened cocoa powder (cocoa if you have medium to dark hair). Mix the two powders adding cocoa until the desired color is reached. Sprinkle on to your roots, gently rub in to absorb the oils and then comb it out.
I know that I didn’t cover all of the ingredients in these products. My goal was to highlight a few to get you the information so that way you could start questioning those toxins they call ingredients and making better choices for you and yours.
I’ll be updating this post in the next couple of weeks as I accumulate more information and get recipes typed out for you to be able to recreate these products organically!