Think about this for a second. Our skin is the largest organ in our body and is capable of absorbing what we put on it. So wouldn’t it make sense to only put on your skin what you’re actually willing to eat?
When we do eat, the defense system in our gut helps protect us by taking toxins to the liver for detoxification, but our skin unfortunately doesn’t really have that same protective mechanism as the gut.
What we put on our skin can be absorbed directly into the blood stream where it can wreak a lot of havoc before making its way to the liver for detoxification.
We’re talking skin issues, fertility and reproductive issues, immune and allergy issues – and yes, even the big scary C word.
Let’s talk stats for a second…
On average, women use about 12 personal care products containing 168 unique ingredients every single day. Men average about 6 products and 85 unique ingredients daily. And about 20% of adults are exposed to all 7 of the top carcinogenic impurities every single day from things like shampoo, conditioner, face cream, body lotion, shaving cream, deodorant, perfume, hair dyes, and here’s a big one – MAKE-UP!!
Several years ago I developed a few small lumps underneath my armpits. Thankfully they were benign and nothing more than a good wake-up call to reduce my toxic load from products that I use.
Antiperspirant deodorant was the first thing to go. I didn’t want the aluminum that is in most antiperspirants so close to my lymph nodes.
And even in regular deodorants, I didn’t want the chemical fragrances and irritants that my skin can directly absorb.
So homemade it was! The worst part was getting used to a “cream-based” deodorant and having to rub it in vs. a stick or a roll-on. But eventually you get used to it and the gross factor goes away. Some of my clients even noticed that they began to perspire less!
My point? That’s a whole lot of stuff that can really add up! So if you really want to do your health a favor, then lessen the burden by replacing the products that you use on a daily basis with brands that use safer and less toxic ingredients.
An amazing resource for that is the Skin Deep database on the Environmental Working Group’s website (http://www.ewg.org/skindeep). You can search by category to find the cleanest brands of personal care products or put in the specific brand of product (or ingredient) that you use to get its toxicity rating.
For products used daily, you’ll want to aim for a score of 1 to 2 max. Anything that is rated a 3 or above on their 10-point scale, aim to replace with a different brand using cleaner ingredients with a lower toxic score.
If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them below.
Until then, let’s UNJUNK, because when we know better, we do better.
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