Here's an approximate snap shot into hub's and my conversation as we were laying in bed last night:
Me: Feel my hand it's SO soft from using that coconut oil on my skin.
Hub: Where'd you get it?
Me: It's that jar that I bought that's been in the kitchen. I have to warm it up but it's amazing--coats well and was great for a bit of self-massage. Roxi was licking my legs like crazy cause she thought it tasted good, so I put on pants.
Hub: (laughing) I bet she loves it! That's funny though cause I thought that jar is for cooking.
Me: Well, it IS for cooking but it can be used on the body....it even says so on the back of the jar! I'd been thinking about buying some and then K sent me a link on it out-of-the-blue and D added to it and it has all sorts of health benefits. Plus some schools of thought think that since our skin is so porous that we shouldn't put anything on it that we wouldn't eat anyway.
Hub: Definitely makes sense and I'm glad you're liking it!
____________________________________________
Now I've only been using it for two days folks, but so far I am AB-SO-LUTELY smitten. I slathered it on with that self-massage in place of my daily moisturizer last night. I applied a tiny bit as my face moisturizer after washing my face this morning, and I slathered up with it after my shower tonight. So far my skin feels great. I haven't decided if I'll stick with it as my morning routine too and it does take a bit of time cause I have to warm up the jar for it to melt into oil, but my skin feels and looks great!
So folks, I'm truly thinking that the coconut oil is here to stay as part of my increasingly more natural beauty routine:
_____________________________________________
It dawned on me that as much as I've written about green living and my use of certain products, I don't know that I've ever really gone into some of the whys about it, so here ya go and get ready for a lil soapbox lecture, although some of you already know most of this.
A) I got into public health originally because my father was diagnosed with cancer due to environmental causes, which lead me to wonder what exactly in the environment could have led to his cancer development. What I didn't know was that the can of worms would so completely open and I'd learn more than I ever wanted to. Ignorance sometimes feels blissful, although the majority of the population has no clue about the harmful substances they are surrounded by...and many of us feel that there's not too much we can do about it even when the knowledge arrives....except to attempt improved personal choices.
B) What this means is that of the approximate 80,000 chemicals out on the market, only 200 of those have been tested by the government as to their health effects....and of those only a handful have been banned for negative health effects in the United States. For the most part industry determines what is "safe" and what is not, and they tend to operate on an "it's safe until its proven otherwise" rather than via the precautionary principle (until its proven to be safe then lets not have the public exposed to it). There are multiple other factors to consider about human exposure too. Some chemicals have been found to have worse effects in small amounts than large (which boggle the human mind, but the human body can also boggle the human mind). And most research that exists is based on a one-time exposure for a certain amount of time.....and does not include cross-contamination. What this means is this: if you apply your lip gloss frequently, then the estimated health effects via the original research is no longer valid. If you apply chap stick AND lip gloss there is a chemical interaction occurring that has not been researched either and any individual research done by the separate industries is no longer true.
C) This multiple exposure issue matters because how frequently are we ever exposed to just one chemical? Your carpet, furniture, car, etc are all off-gassing all the time. Your clothes are made of materials that were coated in chemicals. Your cookware has chemicals, your food is GMO and/or coated in pesticides, dishes & etc-- all are made up of various substances. And how many of you only use ONE personal care product? ALL of these exposures build up in our systems and have the capacity to negatively effect our health. Sure some of them break down quickly but others of them last in our systems and in our environment years beyond their common use. Case in point: recent body studies of individuals have found chemicals that were banned decades ago in the bodies of people born after the chemical was banned. (This can be due to exposure via the environment where the chemical has yet to break down in nature or via the following point....)
D) We're all carrying around hundreds (if not more) chemicals in our bodies that is known as our body burden. You add in the principle of bioaccumulation (think chemical gets eaten by little fish which gets eaten by bigger fish which gets eaten by even bigger fish which gets eaten by human which passes it on to its offspring, since infants are at the top of all food chains.....) and that means that each generation continues to pass its load onto the next. Scientists have measured cord blood in newborns and found that most babies born today have about 300 toxins at birth. Now just imagine the lifetime exposure to more chemicals....and welcome to the life experiment we're all in yet no one signed informed consent. (You can read more about this quickly here or via the books: Body Toxic by Nena Baker and Having Faith by Sandra Steingraber.)
E) And so because of all of THAT I have spent the last several years trying to cut down some of my exposures. There are some things that I can't do too much about---there's always going to be new carpet, new furniture, paint, etc somewhere. And there are some points where I need to do more (case in point: we have stainless steel & copper pots and a cast iron pan but we still use non-stick regularly, plus much of our food is not organic.....). However there are also other products that I use day in and day out.....and many of these are ones I have taken the time to try to find healthier options for. However the more I'm contemplating potentially having a bio baby in the next few years, the more I'm realizing I need to be even more mindful and do more to impact product choices across the board if possible.
F) The area I have probably done the best in over the years has been to reduce the harmful effects based on the ingredients in my personal care products. Generally speaking I use the Skin Deep database by EWG to check out my products. Before I knew about the database, I wrongly thought that anything in the "natural" aisle must be okay, so I used to use things like Nature's Gate shampoo, etc. Most our soap & shampoo got switched over to Burt's Bees after using the database, but in re-checking my products out for this post it appears that the sell-out of Burts to Clorox has increased their harmful health ratings one point on most my products. Now there is some controversy of course, as almost any ingredient could be argued to have potential negative health effects, but I like to check out what the actual ratings are and see what the ingredients have been tied to. Thus staying out of the cancer and reproductive toxicity categories are key for me, while I don't worry quite as much about the allergies category. Not all my products score in the low categories and after the discovery about Burts Bees I might be switching over to something else (Yes to Carrots Nourishing Shampoo & Face Cleanser scores better), but from what I can tell the majority of the other items I use score in the lower categories (minus deodorant, face moisturizer, and face scrub).
I've posted what most the low scoring items are before, but in case you're looking for safer alternatives, I'll recommend some of them again:
--Foundation, bronzer, blush, & eye shadow all come from Alima Mineral Make-up, which is also a local Portland company.
--Eye liner, mascara, & fingernail polish are from Honeybee Gardens.
--Lip gloss & balm are Burts Bees
--Listerine mouthwash scores fairly low and even my stand-by acne treatment scores low (Clean & Clear Persagel)
--Curel Ultra Healing body moisturizer (although this might get taken over by the coconut oil!)
--Basic castille soap bar (for body)
Tonight's research has made me realize I need to swap out the Burts Bees shampoo and face wash and I REALLY need to find a new facial scrub other than the St Ives (which scored 8 out of 10!! Goodness!).
And while we're STILL on this topic (sorry about the lengthy soapbox post tonight!), there was a great related blog post with suggestions for homemade options by Keeper of the Home: 5 Tips for Saving Money on Natural Skincare
What great alternatives can you share to decrease chemical exposure? Any great products or ideas?
Me: Feel my hand it's SO soft from using that coconut oil on my skin.
Hub: Where'd you get it?
Me: It's that jar that I bought that's been in the kitchen. I have to warm it up but it's amazing--coats well and was great for a bit of self-massage. Roxi was licking my legs like crazy cause she thought it tasted good, so I put on pants.
Hub: (laughing) I bet she loves it! That's funny though cause I thought that jar is for cooking.
Me: Well, it IS for cooking but it can be used on the body....it even says so on the back of the jar! I'd been thinking about buying some and then K sent me a link on it out-of-the-blue and D added to it and it has all sorts of health benefits. Plus some schools of thought think that since our skin is so porous that we shouldn't put anything on it that we wouldn't eat anyway.
Hub: Definitely makes sense and I'm glad you're liking it!
____________________________________________
Now I've only been using it for two days folks, but so far I am AB-SO-LUTELY smitten. I slathered it on with that self-massage in place of my daily moisturizer last night. I applied a tiny bit as my face moisturizer after washing my face this morning, and I slathered up with it after my shower tonight. So far my skin feels great. I haven't decided if I'll stick with it as my morning routine too and it does take a bit of time cause I have to warm up the jar for it to melt into oil, but my skin feels and looks great!
So folks, I'm truly thinking that the coconut oil is here to stay as part of my increasingly more natural beauty routine:
It dawned on me that as much as I've written about green living and my use of certain products, I don't know that I've ever really gone into some of the whys about it, so here ya go and get ready for a lil soapbox lecture, although some of you already know most of this.
A) I got into public health originally because my father was diagnosed with cancer due to environmental causes, which lead me to wonder what exactly in the environment could have led to his cancer development. What I didn't know was that the can of worms would so completely open and I'd learn more than I ever wanted to. Ignorance sometimes feels blissful, although the majority of the population has no clue about the harmful substances they are surrounded by...and many of us feel that there's not too much we can do about it even when the knowledge arrives....except to attempt improved personal choices.
B) What this means is that of the approximate 80,000 chemicals out on the market, only 200 of those have been tested by the government as to their health effects....and of those only a handful have been banned for negative health effects in the United States. For the most part industry determines what is "safe" and what is not, and they tend to operate on an "it's safe until its proven otherwise" rather than via the precautionary principle (until its proven to be safe then lets not have the public exposed to it). There are multiple other factors to consider about human exposure too. Some chemicals have been found to have worse effects in small amounts than large (which boggle the human mind, but the human body can also boggle the human mind). And most research that exists is based on a one-time exposure for a certain amount of time.....and does not include cross-contamination. What this means is this: if you apply your lip gloss frequently, then the estimated health effects via the original research is no longer valid. If you apply chap stick AND lip gloss there is a chemical interaction occurring that has not been researched either and any individual research done by the separate industries is no longer true.
C) This multiple exposure issue matters because how frequently are we ever exposed to just one chemical? Your carpet, furniture, car, etc are all off-gassing all the time. Your clothes are made of materials that were coated in chemicals. Your cookware has chemicals, your food is GMO and/or coated in pesticides, dishes & etc-- all are made up of various substances. And how many of you only use ONE personal care product? ALL of these exposures build up in our systems and have the capacity to negatively effect our health. Sure some of them break down quickly but others of them last in our systems and in our environment years beyond their common use. Case in point: recent body studies of individuals have found chemicals that were banned decades ago in the bodies of people born after the chemical was banned. (This can be due to exposure via the environment where the chemical has yet to break down in nature or via the following point....)
D) We're all carrying around hundreds (if not more) chemicals in our bodies that is known as our body burden. You add in the principle of bioaccumulation (think chemical gets eaten by little fish which gets eaten by bigger fish which gets eaten by even bigger fish which gets eaten by human which passes it on to its offspring, since infants are at the top of all food chains.....) and that means that each generation continues to pass its load onto the next. Scientists have measured cord blood in newborns and found that most babies born today have about 300 toxins at birth. Now just imagine the lifetime exposure to more chemicals....and welcome to the life experiment we're all in yet no one signed informed consent. (You can read more about this quickly here or via the books: Body Toxic by Nena Baker and Having Faith by Sandra Steingraber.)
E) And so because of all of THAT I have spent the last several years trying to cut down some of my exposures. There are some things that I can't do too much about---there's always going to be new carpet, new furniture, paint, etc somewhere. And there are some points where I need to do more (case in point: we have stainless steel & copper pots and a cast iron pan but we still use non-stick regularly, plus much of our food is not organic.....). However there are also other products that I use day in and day out.....and many of these are ones I have taken the time to try to find healthier options for. However the more I'm contemplating potentially having a bio baby in the next few years, the more I'm realizing I need to be even more mindful and do more to impact product choices across the board if possible.
F) The area I have probably done the best in over the years has been to reduce the harmful effects based on the ingredients in my personal care products. Generally speaking I use the Skin Deep database by EWG to check out my products. Before I knew about the database, I wrongly thought that anything in the "natural" aisle must be okay, so I used to use things like Nature's Gate shampoo, etc. Most our soap & shampoo got switched over to Burt's Bees after using the database, but in re-checking my products out for this post it appears that the sell-out of Burts to Clorox has increased their harmful health ratings one point on most my products. Now there is some controversy of course, as almost any ingredient could be argued to have potential negative health effects, but I like to check out what the actual ratings are and see what the ingredients have been tied to. Thus staying out of the cancer and reproductive toxicity categories are key for me, while I don't worry quite as much about the allergies category. Not all my products score in the low categories and after the discovery about Burts Bees I might be switching over to something else (Yes to Carrots Nourishing Shampoo & Face Cleanser scores better), but from what I can tell the majority of the other items I use score in the lower categories (minus deodorant, face moisturizer, and face scrub).
I've posted what most the low scoring items are before, but in case you're looking for safer alternatives, I'll recommend some of them again:
--Foundation, bronzer, blush, & eye shadow all come from Alima Mineral Make-up, which is also a local Portland company.
--Eye liner, mascara, & fingernail polish are from Honeybee Gardens.
--Lip gloss & balm are Burts Bees
--Listerine mouthwash scores fairly low and even my stand-by acne treatment scores low (Clean & Clear Persagel)
--Curel Ultra Healing body moisturizer (although this might get taken over by the coconut oil!)
--Basic castille soap bar (for body)
Tonight's research has made me realize I need to swap out the Burts Bees shampoo and face wash and I REALLY need to find a new facial scrub other than the St Ives (which scored 8 out of 10!! Goodness!).
And while we're STILL on this topic (sorry about the lengthy soapbox post tonight!), there was a great related blog post with suggestions for homemade options by Keeper of the Home: 5 Tips for Saving Money on Natural Skincare
What great alternatives can you share to decrease chemical exposure? Any great products or ideas?
4 comments:
I LOVE coconut oil, I use it in cooking, for my severely dry skin, and also in homemade deodorant. It is insane the amount of chemicals that are around us now. And especially scary when we hear about how many people have cancer and other medical issues these days. Some of my less green relatives think we have so many problems because there are more people and we live longer...but I think the food we eat, the way we clean our homes, and the products we use on our bodies are a huge contributor to these problems.
As far as alternatives go...well...I started making my own deodorant, which works just fine as long as I bathe regularly :-) And as far as everything else...I turned to baking soda and vinegar to clean, I make my own laundry soap, and I stopped wearing makeup and using hair products. Sounds kind of gross, and it definitely took some getting used to, but then I realized that I didn't need the makeup, I look fine without it :-) Oh, and I started making my own deodorant after I started nursing. I wasn't comfortable with having my infant's head so close to something I wasn't so sure about. Sorry to ramble :-)
Heather, great suggestions--I love the input and feedback. I went the no or less make-up route for about a year, but I prefer to wear it for me so decided to at least find the safest options. It took two years for me to paint my toe nails again, but I have one permanently ugly toe nail so finally broke down again once I found the Honeybee Gardens stuff. And I went the no deodorant route for almost 6 months and it actually went better than planned.....and then I moved to hot, humid Louisiana and went back to it.
Love all the awesome stuff you're doing and I LOVE hearing about it, gets me thinking even more again! And I like the insight as to why you quit deodorant---good food for thought for sure!
Hope you're enjoying a nice Sunday!
Oh, look at that! An anonymous friend makes the anonymous blog!!! :))) I read anther great way to eat coconut oil the other day...add it to black coffee! Brilliant. I'm glad you're enjoying it so much.
Great post though--wish I had more to add to your list. Oh here, even though it doesn't pertain to you (yet), cloth diapers! :) I saw a great breakdown of the chemicals in paper diapers vs cloth today. Makes me want to cloth 100%. But I digress... :)
Catching up on my blog reading!
Thanks for this post and the link to the register of products. Not all mu UK products are listed but I have found that my favourite Dr Hauschka moisturiser scores a 6! will now be looking for a lower scored alternative
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