How Safe is Your Morning Bathroom Routine?

How safe is your morning bathroom routine?  Most likely you take a shower with a zesty, invigorating shower gel; you shampoo and condition your hair; you wash and maybe scrub your face with a foaming fresh-smelling cleanser; if you are a man, you also shave.  You splash your skin with a toner or an astringent, top it with a moisturizer with (hopefully) some sunscreen in it, followed by makeup (again, optional), rub some antiperspirant under your arms, and add a spritz of a fragrance to seal the deal.  Within fifteen minutes, you have exposed yourself to a whopping amount of chemicals — and you haven’t even left home yet!

After a quick count of ingredients contained in a typical cleanser, toner, moisturizer, eye cream, facial scrub, body wash, body lotion, and sunscreen, I came up with more than two hundred different chemicals that we diligently apply to our body daily.  This is not counting hundreds  of synthetic fragrance ingredients in your favorite eau de toilette!  As you leave the house, you may inhale car emissions, pesticides, radon, volatile organic compounds  - we are truly bombarded with chemicals in our food, water and air!

With such a dramatic rise in illnesses such as cancer, asthma, allergies, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, autism and ADHD we have to wonder if chemical exposure is contributing to this widespread decline in our overall health.  We have no control over environmental exposure, but we can choose to eat organic or chemical free food and greatly reduce the chemicals we use at home with natural cleaning products and natural personal care products.

So, how do we know which products are safe to use?  You must become an ingredient detective.  Even the most “natural” sounding products on health store shelves often contain some harmful ingredients.  These ingredients are often preservatives which are not in the product for your benefit, but so the product can sit for months or even years on store shelves.  We have compiled a list of the most common dangerous chemicals to avoid. The Environmental Working Group (www.ewg.org) also has extensive data on this topic and you can look at the MSDS (or material safety data sheets) if you want to learn more about individual ingredients.

Check your products for the following dangerous ingredients which have the potential to cause adverse effects to your health:

Acetone - effects respiratory and nervous system

Sodium Lauryl/Laureth Sulfate – one of the most common and hazardous chemicals used in personal care products.  Can cause tissue damage that could result in liver, brain, heart, lung damage if used over the long term, eye damage, severe skin irritation, hair loss, eczema, is rapidly taken up and stored within the body.

Nitrosamines – carcinogenic and skin irritant.

BHA or BHT- skin and eye irritant, xeno-estrogen, known to be carcinogen and reproductive disruptor in animals.

DEA – skin and eye irritant that accumulates in organs such as the brain.  Suspected carcinogen.

Dioxane – suspected carcinogen, chemical byproduct.

Isopropyl alcohol – extremely damaging to the eyes, skin irritant.

Propylene Glycol – eye and skin irritant, causes cancer in animal, effects the liver and kidneys.

Parabens – Methyl, propyl, etc. have been found in a large percentage of breast cancer tumors.

It is hard to avoid these toxic chemicals in most commercial personal care products.  We think the easiest solution is to use only chemical – free, natural products to not only preserve but to enhance your health!  We have started a new all natural, hand crafted line of products called Herbal Revolution.  To learn more about these products, call Down To Earth Wellness at (719) 313-7801.