Personal Care

I choose to use healthy products that respect my body.

MY MOTHER WAS A SKIN DRILL SERGEANT. She was obsessed with the way that I took care of my skin, which was so annoying when I was a teenager. Nonetheless, I followed her lead. It wasn’t until many years later, when I was regularly complimented on how healthy my skin looked, that I became grateful for her insistence. She taught me early on the importance of personal care and how the way we take care of ourselves and our bodies can determine the quality, and often the longevity, of our lives. 

Good environmental hygiene is one of the best ways to care for our bodies. What I have learned is that it is not just the act of washing our hands or shampooing our hair on a regular basis that matters, the personal-care products we choose are also important. Unfortunately, if we are not paying attention, we may be doing more harm than good by choosing products that are loaded with chemicals and toxins and slowly poisoning ourselves and the planet in the process. We need to carefully read labels and not be fooled by words like natural, or which are often marketing attempts to “greenwash” a product that is not as healthy as it says it is. And we can’t even really depend on ingredient labels. Although the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act requires cosmetics and personal-care products to have an “ingredient declaration” that lists the ingredients used in the product, the law cannot force a company to disclose “trade secrets” like fragrance and flavors. This loophole is where manufacturers can hide chemicals and other toxins that are not good for your health or that of the planet. Upwards of 3000 chemicals can be labeled “fragrance,” hundreds of which are known toxicants, allergens and irritants, according to Heather Patisaul, Professor Biological Sciences Center for Human Health and the Environment, WM Keck Center for Behavioral Biology NC State University. 

A study conducted by the EWG showed that the average adult uses nine personal-care products with a total of126 unique chemical ingredients! (www.ewg.org/skindeep/2004/06/15/exposures-addup-survey-results) More than a quarter of all women and one out of every one hundred men use at least fifteen products daily. That is a lot of chemicals potentially being absorbed through your skin and getting into your bloodstream. The next sections are intended to aid you in making better choices in personal-care products. Choosing better personal care products is one of the easiest ways to reduce your body’s toxic load. You don’t always have control over the chemicals that you are exposed to in your environment, but you have complete control over the products you buy and use on your body. You are likely not going to get cancer from using a bad moisturizer once, but a lifetime of exposure can have profound negative effects.