Hello friends!
When I began my health journey (12 years ago now!) the first changes I made were to our food choices–eliminating soda, drastically reducing sugar & processed foods, increasing fruits and vegetables and buying organic as much as possible and switching to local, organic, grass fed animal products.
Several years later I began to realize, while these changes were really important, I was still exposing myself to a huge number of chemicals and toxic ingredients in my personal care & beauty products.
On average, women use 168 chemicals every day, most before they even step out of the house in the morning! Many of these chemicals are endocrine disruptors and/or labeled as probable carcinogens by the World Health Organization and others. According to the Environmental Working Group:
- One in every 24 women, 4.3 million women altogether, are exposed daily to personal care product ingredients that are known or probable reproductive and developmental toxins, linked to impaired fertility or developmental harm for a baby in the womb or a child.
- One of every five adults are potentially exposed every day to all seven of the top carcinogenic impurities common to personal care product ingredients: hydroquinone, ethylene dioxide, 1,4-dioxane, formaldehyde, nitrosamines, PAHs, and acrylamide. The top most common impurity ranked by number of people exposed is hydroquinone, which is a potential contaminant in products used daily by 94 percent of all women and 69 percent of all men.
Our skin is our largest organ, and somewhere between 60% and 100% (depending on which studies you look at and which area of the body you’re talking about) of what we put onto our bodies is absorbed into the blood stream. So while I believe healthy skin begins with what we put IN our bodies, its also really important to make sure the products we are using ON our bodies don’t contain toxic chemicals and ingredients that are harming our health.
There are more than 80,000 manmade chemicals used in our modern-day world. Most of these chemicals have no safety data – particularly those used in the skin care and beauty industry. The Food and Drug Administration allows companies to use chemicals known to be extremely harmful in the products we put on our bodies and on our kids’ bodies every single day.
The European Union has banned more than 1,300 chemicals from use in personal care products. Canada has banned 500. The United States has only partially banned 30.
So its up to us to do our own research, choose the products we use carefully, and let these companies know by where we spend our dollars, that we don’t appreciate toxic, health damaging chemicals in our products.
If this seems daunting to you, you’re not alone! It was for me and it has been a slow process of finding products I like, that work well, that I can feel good about using on my body and on my children’s bodies, AND made by companies I can feel good about supporting.
EWG’s Skin Deep Database
One resource I LOVE is the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep cosmetics database, where they rate personal care products based on how well they work, and whether they contain ingredients that are harmful to our health. I highly recommend researching the products you use in this database!
My Skin Care Routine & Favorite Products
Although you couldn’t tell by looking in my bathroom cabinet, I’ve become pretty minimalist when it comes to my personal care products & what I actually use every day.
For washing my face every morning and evening & removing makeup, I love my Norwex body cloths. No cleansers are needed with these microfiber cloths that contain silver to make them antibacterial. Just get the cloth wet and it gently cleans & cleanses without any harmful chemicals. They even remove mascara! While they’re a bit pricey, they last forever and I consider it a huge savings since I spend money on other facial cleansers and make up removers. (if you need a Norwex consultant, reach out to my friend Carrie at carrie.aiken.business@gmail.com)
After washing my face, I use either:
- Beautycounter Number 3 Ylang Ylang Balancing Oil OR
- An oil I make myself using a wonderful blend of carrier oils called Younger Glo from Plant Therapy mixed with a few drops of Calendula and Helichrysum essential oils.
My other favorite skin care product right now is Beautycounter’s Number 3 Charcoal Mask, which I use once/week.
Whether it was finding better, safer products (maybe), all of the vegetables, fruits, healthy fats & water I consume every single day (yes, most definitely) or eliminating inflammatory foods like gluten, dairy and sugar (which makes a HUGE difference in my skin!) at 42 my skin is honestly the brightest and clearest it has ever been.
For body soap, I like to buy locally made pure & natural cleansing bars or I order Dr. Bronners or Kiss My Face Olive Oil Bars from Amazon. For a body moisturizer, I use pure, organic Almond, Coconut or Sesame Oils, also from Plant Therapy.
For shampoo & conditioner I use Beautycounter’s Daily Shampoo & Daily Conditioner (for me) or BC’s kids shampoo and conditioner for my kiddos.
For brushing my teeth, I’ve recently started using the Natural Toothpowder from Primal Life Organics.
Beauty counter
After a LOT of research, I switched all of my makeup and some of my skin care products to Beautycounter and I’m so thrilled with it that I became a Beautycounter consultant so I can share it with my friends and clients. (I never endorse or recommend products that I don’t personally use and love!!)
Beautycounter’s mission is to get safer products into the hands of everyone. As a result, Beautycounter has banned the use of more than 1,500 questionable or harmful chemicals, all while ensuring their products perform well and that they’re as indulgent as any luxe product on the market. You can find out more about the ingredients BC does not and will not ever use here, by checking out “the Never list.”
You can find out more about Beautycounter’s mission and purchase Beautycounter products here. (When you shop with me – Kristi Cirignano – as your consultant, you are helping to support my work at Nourished for Life Wellness Coaching. Thank you!!!) It’s not just makeup–Beautycounter also offers hair care, kids products, body products, and skincare.
I love all of the makeup I have tried (especially the Dew Skin Tinted Moisturizer, eye liner, eye brown pencil and the lengthening mascara) and as I mentioned above, I’m also really loving their Daily Shampoo and Conditioner, Number 3 Balancing Oil and Number 3 Balancing Mask. Feel free to send me a message if you have questions about any Beautycounter products and I’ll be happy to help!
To your health and wellness!
PS: Local friends, join me Wednesday, March 14 from 10:30 to 11:30 for a FREE workshop at Sift Yoga introducing a series I’ll be doing in April called Stressed to Zen! We’ll talk about what stress is, how it can help us and how it can harm our health and how to change your perception of stress to find more peace and joy in your life!
PSS: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. I share products & companies I love with you regardless of whether they have an affiliate program, and I only recommend products I actually use and love! By purchasing through my affiliate links, a small percentage of your purchase goes to help support my mission of providing resources, information and support to empower people to change their health and their future through whole foods and a healthy lifestyle. Thank you!!!
