The Rabbit Hole Of Personal Hygiene
My initial thought was to do a post on Smart Shampooing. My immediate response to myself was that the chemical issue runs so much deeper than just shampoo. I also held back as a part of me thinks this is all common knowledge. The more years I work with clients and students with cancers, auto-immune diseases, skin and respiratory ailments... disease after disease, I speak with them about the products they use. So many people really never thought that their personal care items were an issue: "I don't eat them."
Every day Americans and people all over the world slather lotions, potions, elixirs, cleansers, shampoos, deodorants, anti-perspirants, toothpastes, and on and on all over the outside and inside of their bodies. Few people scrutinize the labels; really scrutinize the labels for what exactly is in these products. They march up and down the grocery, drug, and department store aisles grabbing products off the shelf and tossing carelessly into the shopping cart or basket.
My initial thought was to do a post on Smart Shampooing. My immediate response to myself was that the chemical issue runs so much deeper than just shampoo. I also held back as a part of me thinks this is all common knowledge. The more years I work with clients and students with cancers, auto-immune diseases, skin and respiratory ailments... disease after disease, I speak with them about the products they use. So many people really never thought that their personal care items were an issue: "I don't eat them."
Every day Americans and people all over the world slather lotions, potions, elixirs, cleansers, shampoos, deodorants, anti-perspirants, toothpastes, and on and on all over the outside and inside of their bodies. Few people scrutinize the labels; really scrutinize the labels for what exactly is in these products. They march up and down the grocery, drug, and department store aisles grabbing products off the shelf and tossing carelessly into the shopping cart or basket.
All of these products are loaded with synthetic ingredient that tax the work of your liver's detoxification pathways. Ultimately, these chemicals do not all get detoxed from the body. Over time these chemical ingredients contribute to all manner of ill health symptoms. Toxins in the body are not a positive thing. Think about an over taxed liver, immune system, lymph system, circulatory system, excretory systems... seriously, every cell of your body is affected and burdened with the toxic load. We expect our bodies to function at top notch health but we do not provide top notch food or body care. It is an equation that is not balanced. Eventual breakdown of health is the result.
Think about all of the products you perhaps buy and use:
- hair care: shampoos, conditioners, and various products to hold hair stiffly into place
- facial makeup of every variety for face, eyes, lips, etc.
- toothpaste, mouth wash, teeth whitening products
- menstrual care products: pads, tampons, etc.
- deodorants for feet, armpits, and genital areas
- various over the counter (OTC) medications to slather on fungal, bacterial, or some other microbial issue
- anti-perspirants
- lotions meant to moisturize skin for the long haul
- facial wrinkle erasers, wrinkle prevention
- household cleaners you use on your clothes (fabric softeners and toxic bleaches), dishes, floors, tubs-sinks-toilets, etc. These all come in contact with your skin and respiratory passages and they are then a part of your whole being
- then there is chlorine and flouride in drinking water, bromine is flour products, toxins in OTC and prescription medications altering cellular function.
- hair coloring, hair bleaching, perming & straightening *****(Get ready for Five Elements Living's Organic Beauty Spa. Shelby Connelly, Licensed Acupuncturist, is opening Five Elements Living Retreat and Healing Arts Center in Colton, NY. There will be organic hair and beauty care treatments, coloring, perming, nail care, and products for purchase. Woo-Hoo!)
What IS in these products?
Just as I encourage clients, students, family and friends to not eat anything that is not 100% natural, well, the same goes for personal hygiene. If you are putting a product on or in your body (toothpaste, tampon, hemorrhoid cream, etc.) you are essentially eating it. The product's ingredients end up in your blood and lymph circulation and eventually a part of every body cell.
Read labels on everything you buy, every time you buy the same product. Small companies, with the right attitude about offering whole & natural products, start up companies. The company and its products become very successful (making tons of $$$). This entices major corporations to want this small company for their own bottom lines. The natural minded company gets sold out to a big corporation and the products are changed. Ingredients are swapped out for cheaper versions. The big corporations function in a "cheapest ingredients into the product for the largest profit margin for our wallets" mentality. So this product you have grown to trust suddenly is not the same high quality ingredients.
ADVICE: Read labels on everything you buy, every time you buy it. Accept nothing but high quality whole ingredients in both your food and your personal care products. Nature intended it this way... human corporate greed is the only thing that has changed it. Take care of you. Nature wants you to... you are nature.
Great resource is the Environmental Working Group: http://www.ewg.org/consumer-guides
Even better resource: Your own common sense
Company's Products I trust, like, and use (yes, I read labels every time):
- Aubrey Organics If you live in St. Lawrence County, NY, these products are available through Nature's Storehouse, Canton, NY.
- Just Natural Skin Care
- Morrocco Method Hair Care
- Weleda Also available at Nature's Storehouse, Canton
This is just a few companies I have used and continue to use their products. No, I do not receive kick backs for suggesting these products.
Natural care products, much like real / whole / and organic food, are more expensive. When we feed our bodies real food, we eat less. Our bodies do not cry out for just calories, hunger is about nutrition. When we feed our cells with whole foods, our bodies require less. Real food may cost more but we eat less than when we stuff ourselves over and over with nutritionally depleted factory made foods and our cells continue to cry for nutrition.
When we care for our bodies with natural ingredients, we are not loading our cells with toxic chemicals. The pay-offs are huge and worth the extra expense. Many body care products are easily made, at home by you, with natural ingredients.
How I save money:
- I always order when the company has a promotion: % off or free shipping (or both!)
For example, I use and love Morrocco Method 5 shampoos. The 5 bottle package is $129, which seems pricey as an all at once purchase. The 5 bottles last at least 7 months which would be $18.42 a month BUT I buy when there is a 20% discount and free shipping over $100. My last purchase, under these special terms, was a total of $103.20 costing about $14.74 a month. I can live with this cost. The shampoos are very gentle on my hair requiring absolutely no conditioner. Figure your cost for commercial shampoo and conditioner (and whatever other products get slathered and sprayed onto your hair) every month and I bet the $14.74 is less $$$ out of your pocket.
Read labels. Know what you are putting in and on your beautiful body and into your body cells. Cellular health is the foundation for whole body health.
Skin Care the Whole Food Way (and support for teen acne)
Those who know me know that my eating habits revolve around only real, nature made foods for this gal. No Ho-Hos, Twinkies, Doritos, and sodas for me.
I take care of my skin in this same Wise Woman way. If I would not put some substance in my digestive tract, why would I put it on my skin?
Call to Action: Take a very close look at the ingredients in the products that you slather on your scalp, face, arm pits, and overall body skin to cleanse, moisturize, deodorize, medicate, etc.
Would you put all of the ingredients in those products onto your plate?
Every ingredient will soak through your skin and be circulated around to every body cell. That's correct, every chemical becomes part of your cell makeup.
So what is a wise person to do to avoid all this crap in their skin care products?
Read ingredients like a chemical, refined ingredient detective, just as you do with your food.
Buy 100% natural products.
Make your own skin care products.
Re-evaluate all the products you keep in cupboards, drawers, and medicine cabinets. Are all of these lotions, potions, gels, sprays, deodorants, etc. really needed? I bet you can pare down to the bare necessities and save $$$ as well as chemicals on and in your body.
Good Skin Care Consists of:
Whole Food Feeding your body to prevent skin diseases, rashes, aging (wrinkle), and pre-mature degeneration of the skin. If you understand these whole food principles... skip clicking on the link back there and move along.
Whole Health Lifestyle Choices: Your skin is one of the first areas of the body to show signs of poor nutrition and lifestyle habits. The advice about the link above is the same here... if you are well versed in whole health living just move along.
Wise sun exposure. We need skin exposed to the sun to make Vitamin D. What we naturally make in our own skin is readily available for the body to use. Low quality Vit D supplements are not so easy for your body to use and add to toxic build up.
Avoiding soap. I know, sorry on this one as I am certain I will be ruffling some feathers. Your skin has a slight acid mantle. This acidity is your first line of defense against foreign invaders (i.e. micro-organisms). Soap is alkaline. Soap on the skin changes the acid PH and decreases your skins immune function. Your skin has to work harder to repair this acid mantle. Keep soap out of the picture and you protect and assist your skin as it goes about the task of covering and protecting your beautiful body. On another note: the slightly acid mantle of the skin keeps bacteria at bay... natural zit protection.
Occasional zits are one thing, acne is a whole other issue. Acne is a symptom of an unhealthy interior, poor food choices, a liver that is taxed and needs nourishing.
Onto Teen Acne... (truly anyone's acne will benefit)
I cannot emphasize the need for real, whole, natural foods to care for teen acne (to care for everyone all the time). If a kid is eating junk food crap that food is what is creating their cellular health, every body cell, and the toxins in junk food are excreted through the skin (through your digestive tract and urinary tract as well). Unhealthy skin is a symptom of unhealthy diet and lifestyle.
Yes, kids will have some zits with the craziness of teen hormonal shifts and their growth spurts. Acne can be seriously diminished and also prevented by a healthy lifestyle. Healthy living also balances teen hormones so they are not so all over the place. Modern living and eating has wrecked havoc on human health, teens included. See good skin care recommendations above.
Using low dose anti-biotics and birth control pills to deal with teen acne is an attempt at quick fixes that has disastrous long term consequences: serious disruption of healthy gut microbes, anti-biotic resistant bacteria, nutritional deficiencies, and so much more. Teen's skin (and bodies) are so much healthier when we function from a space of natural healing and avoid caving to quick fix pharmaceuticals with long-term damaging effects.
Teen Medicinal Infusion (Herbal Tea) OR Tincture
To compliment a whole food diet clearing toxins from the body and helping to heal acne, you can make your own herbal tea or tincture. Teas are easy to make and use within 30 minutes. Tinctures take a month or so to prep but last years.
To properly make herbal teas, infusions, go to this link
A simple formula I made for my kids, when they were teens, is my Zit Zapper Potion.
Red Clover for blood cleansing
Burdock & Dandelion Roots for liver nourishment of the detoxification pathways
Stinging Nettle Leaves for cell nourishment
Milk Thistle Seeds for liver nourishment to build liver health
To make a tea, see link above, you will have to follow the instructions for a decoction when infusing the hard plant parts of the Burdock & Dandelion Roots & the Milk Thistle Seeds.
I chop the roots into very small pieces and put them in the blender with the Thistle seeds. I blend quickly into rough chunky powder and then use for the decoction. I would chop 1 Tbsp of each of the 3 hard herb parts and make about 1/2 gallon of the tea.
After VERY gently simmering the hard parts for 20 minutes or so, shut off heat under your pot. Add the tablespoon of Stinging Nettle leaves and tablespoon of Red Clover flowers. I have both of these measured out and ready in a bowl. I use my fingers to break them into smaller pieces before putting into the root / seed decoction.
Once the soft plant parts are in the pot, stir gently, put pot cover back on, and let it sit and steep over night. The heat is off under the pot, no simmering of the soft plant parts.
Strain & refrigerate. Squeeze all tea from the wet plant parts.
Drink 2-3 cups daily. Measure out 6-8 ounces at a time, not a 12-16 oz. mug.
To make a tincture:
have 2 tablespoons of each of the 5 herbs in this formula
toss all into the blender and gently blend into soft, chunky powder
add 8 ounces of organic 100 proof vodka to blender and swirl around to get the plant pieces off the sides of the blender pitcher. No wasting plants!
Pour the plant vodka mixture into a pint or quart canning jar. Plastic lids work better than the 2 piece metal lids as the alcohol tends to eat up & rust the metal.
Get all materials out of the blender
label your jar with the herbs in it, date you made it, and the vodka you used. Store the bottle in a cupboard away from heat and light.
gently swirl the contents every day for at least a month.
After the month, carefully strain to preserve all of the liquid. Squeeze the herbs to get every last drop of your precious tincture.
Store the finished bottle in a cupboard away from heat and light.
Start of slowly taking 10 drops 2-3 times daily. After a week up to 20 drops 2-3 times a day. 3rd week: 30 drops 2-3 times a day. Skip one day a week. If some days you take twice and other days three times, that is perfect!
Now if you want to get really fun, learn how to make tinctures with the phases of the Moon. Some are made from Full Moon to Full Moon, some from Dark New Moon to Dark New Moon. Herbal medicine making is a gift to your healing adventure.
Teen Skin Wash
Put into a clean 8 oz jar:
3/4 cup water
1-2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar (the raw, unfiltered variety)
Optional: 1-2 drops of tea tree oil or oregano oil
Keep cover on tightly
Shake this jar well before using every AM & PM. Simply wet the corner of a thin cotton cloth (thick, fluffy wash clothes absorb too much of the liquid and waste it) and wipe across your entire face, neck, back, shoulders... wherever pimples plague you.
If you are showering, shower before using this vinegar wash. Splash your face with clean water, skip the soap, before applying if you are not showering.
Another Homemade Product suggestion: add 1 - 2 tbsp. of unrefined sea salt to above liquid and use as an underarm deodorant. The salt, vinegar, and essential oils work to prevent bacterial growth in your arm pits. Bacterial growth is what creates odor. This will not prevent perspiring like antiperspirants do. Antiperspirants are a whole other toxin to learn about, consider not using, and get out of your life. Stopping a natural process, perspiring, is never a wise choice. Perspiring is one way your body rids itself of toxins. Having bowel movements is another. How healthy do you think you would be if you used a daily anti-BM pill?
Questions, comments, some tried & true skin care thing you do? Please share in the comments.
More skin articles to read:
Naked skin care: apple cider vinegar products that maintain your skin's acid mantle (yes, you can also make your own!)
Secret face lift for making your own lotion