Why Clean Skincare Matters
Did you know that your skin in your largest organ? Our skin is an integral part of our immune system that helps to keep us healthy and well.
The personal care products we use each day – lotions, deodorants, make- up, etc. often contain chemicals that can easily be absorbed and pass through to our circulatory system. While not all chemicals that we can absorb are harmful, many of the ones found in conventional personal care products are.
Toxic Ingredients In Personal Care Products
The average woman uses 12+ personal care products every day; men use about 6. Nearly all conventional (ie. not organic, plant based) personal care products contain chemicals that have been linked to a long list of chronic health issues including:
- Early onset puberty
- Increased risk of breast cancer
- Birth defects (primarily in boys)
- Decreased thyroid function
- Weight gain
- Diabetes
- Obesity
- Allergies
- Developmental & behavioral issues, including ADHD, and autism
- Immune system damage
- Skin irritation (rashes, contact dermatitis)
- Oxidative damage
- Cancers
Key Chemicals To Avoid
To reduce exposure to these chemicals, and to help optimize your health, it’s important to read product ingredient labels closely. While you don’t need to know every single ingredient, you should avoid products that contain any of the following:
- “Fragrance” or “Perfume/Parfum”
- Parabens
- Formaldehyde
- PEGs
- Quaternium-15
- DMDM hydantoin
- Imidazolidinyl urea
- Diazolidinyl urea
- Polyoxymethylene urea
- Diethanolamine (DEA)
- Monoethanolamine (MEA)
- Triethanolamine (TEA)
- Cocamide DEA
- Sodium Lauryl Sulfate
- Sodium Laureth Sulfate
- Any chemical name ending in “-eth” (eg: myreth, ceteareth, oleth)
- Retinyl palmitate
- Triclosan
- Oxybenzone
- EDTA
I also like to use Beautycounter’s Never List as a guide for the top harmful ingredients to avoid in personal care products. They even make it easy creating a personal pocket size list you can print and carry in your wallet or save as a photo on your phone to check the next time you go to the store or as you look through your current products in your house.
Why we have to take this into our own hands and not leave it up to companies?
Because there hasn’t been a major federal law passed in the United States since 1938 and the U.S has only banned 30 ingredients! Since then over 80,000 chemicals have been introduced and the government isn’t doing anything to regulate what goes into our personal care products. Therefore, we are being tested on while other countries like Europe have banned 1,400 ingredients and Canada 600 due to the exposure of these chemicals and what they are doing to our health.
Safer Skincare Solutions
Thankfully, there are more companies than ever before that are formulating clean, non-toxic personal care products, from shaving creams and deodorants, to shampoos and lipstick.
The best resource for finding these safer products are the following online stores, apps, and certifications:
Online Databases:
Environmental Working Group: Skin Deep Database
Product Certifications:
Apps:
EWG Healthy Living App
Think Dirty
My Favorite Online Retailers of highly curated personal care products free of many harmful chemicals:
