Avoiding Unhealthy Personal Care Products
Personal Care > Avoiding Unhealthy Personal Care Products
In this high-tech postmodern culture of ours, we have the best opportunities, the finest options, and the greatest access to personal care products and the items, information, and services that usually accompany them. The word to emphasize here is information. By keeping up on information regarding personal care products and their ingredients, we can avoid damage to our bodies, skin, hair, teeth, nails, and overall health.
Because of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938, which exempted many personal care products from ban, we have to research the products and ingredients carefully, to avoid potential harm—be it short or long term damage. And because many ingredients are molecularly small enough to penetrate the pores of our skin and harm internal organs (deodorant, for example), it’s best to read the ingredients on the products…before we use them. Here is a partial list of potentially toxic elements:
Alum/Aluminum —Aluminum is a known skin irritant. It also has been implicated in contributing to nerve damage and dementia.
Bentonite (also known as Kaolin) —Bentonite is an ingredient in fire extinguishers. It clogs and suffocates skin pores.
Benzoic (or Benzyl) —Benzoic contains carcinogenics, endocrine disrupters, and has been suspected to contribute to birth defects.
Coal tar dyes —Dyes and colorings—in everything from junk food to medications to such personal care products as toothpaste and mouthwash--contain lead, arsenic, and/or other carcinogens that can cause eye and neurological damage, fatigue, nausea, and can bring on asthma attacks, headaches, and anxiety. As well, scientific evidence holds that coal
Diethanolamine (also known as DEA, or TEA) —Diethanolamine is used to accelerate foamy
Dioxins —a recently identified carcinogen that is found as a paper-bleaching by-product.
Flouride —Flouride is used in insecticides to kill insects.
Formaldehyde —Formaldehyde is also deadly: a colorless gas, it is used as a disinfectant, a fixative, and/or a preservative, and is a common item in many personal care products such as hair spray, makeup, and nail care kits. It is an
Laureth (or PEG) —Laureth is another potential carcinogen. As well it is an endocrine disrupter and an estrogen mimic.
Lye —Lye is a reagent used in many soap products. Undiluted, it is caustic and
Isopropyl Alcohol —Isopropyl alcohol has been proven to be a contributor to throat, tongue, and mouth cancer.
Propylene Glycol —Found in many personal care products, propylene glycol has been tested as being a causative in kidney and liver abnormalities,
Sodium Laureth/Laurel Sulfate —Also known as SLES/SLS, this ingredient has been suspected to contain potential carcinogens, to cause damage to children’s teeth, to cause hair loss, and to contain endocrine disrupters and estrogen mimics.
Talc —Used in most commercial powders, as well as in deodorants, it has been proven as a carcinogen.
Do we still want to call our personal care products personal CARE products? If we check carefully to be sure at least the above ingredients do not appear in them….