Have you ever wondered what your makeup and skincare might be doing to your body? Other then making our skin less or more broken out, we mostly don't think that any of our products really makes a big difference in our overall well being.
As my wellness journey continues, food will always be a major component of balancing out my body, but overtime I have learned that what I am putting on my skin is equally important.
Why? The skin is the bodies largest organ, and it just so happens to be extremely porous. Before I started to learn more about "natural living", I never even thought of the skin as an organ - even though it makes sense. For example sweating is the body's way of removing toxins - you might notice that you tend to smell less "lovely" during a stressful phase in life because your body is expelling more toxins then normal through the skin. So so gross, but so so cool.
The fact that the skin is porous goes both ways - just like the skin sweats and expels toxins, it just as easily absorbs toxins. So basically anything we apply to our skin (make-up, lotions, creams, sunscreen) adsorbs directly into the bloodstream. So if we are using products with toxic chemicals, well, we can see how that might be a cause for concern.
To put things into a little bit of perspective - the European laws ban 1,328 toxic chemicals from their skincare and beauty products that are suspected of causing health problems like cancer, gene mutations, infertility or reproductive harm, and even birth defeats. In comparison the the United Sates that has only partially banned 11 toxic chemicals. Isn't that insane? This makes me miss living in Germany so much, we could easily shop on the economy and we din't have to question every product in so much depth.
Before I started to learn and research all of these things, I simply assumed that everything on the shelves must be safe, because it's regulated. Seems not - I was way to trusting.
The main problem with all these toxic chemicals is that they are endocrine disruptors. What does that mean? Basically these toxic chemicals disguises themselves as hormones, and therefore interfere with our bodies naturally occurring hormones, and that wreaks havoc on the systems in our body that rely on these hormones to function well. These endocrine disruptors are also (mostly) the main causes of break outs, infertility, weight gain, oily skin, migraines, high toxicity of the liver, sleeping disorders, and a whole bunch of other hormonal issues also known as lady problems.
I have been wondering why all these other toxic chemicals aren't banned in the United States. After much reading and gathering of information, it seems that they reason these toxic chemicals are allowed in our skincare and beauty products is - because delivered in small doses these chemicals can't cause harm. But when you think about it - we apply multiple products a day - face wash, cleaners, toner, moisturizer, serums, night creams, masks, body wash, body lotions, makeup, shampoo, other hair products, perfume, and even deodorant. All of these products include a small dose of toxic chemicals, which when you add it up is way more then what a single product would have.
Once I learned all of these things I became more conscious of my own skincare and beauty products. I was dumbfounded that all my beloved products had tons and tons of toxic chemicals - these are some of the most common ones - parabens, fragrance, phthalates, sodium lauryl sulfate, sodium laureth sulfate, formaldehyde, propylene glycol, triclosan, and petrolatum.
Toxic chemicals are everywhere, and it shocked me. Even in the beauty brands that I considered to be top of the line, and a little more "natural." It was so discouraging, well actually just plain disheartening, but over the last few months, I have been slowly weeding out all the nasty ingredients and been replacing them with safer alternatives (it is working progress.) It has been just a few months and my skin has never felt better.
Soon I will be sharing my all time favorite clean beauty brands with the products that I love and use - so stayed tuned if you are looking for some suggestions to clean up your own beauty drawer.
In the meantime if you are interested in learning more about safer skincare and why it really matters, check out this page and this page.
Do you use any safer skincare products? What is your favorite brands? Have you noticed any changes since using them? Please share below in the comments.
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