I hope you all had a fantastic week!
Before I begin, I'd like to check in and follow up on my last post about GMO-free/safe diets. How is everyone doing? What "category" of your groceries did you decide to replace first? I've decided to work on produce first. This has been a serious challenge so far, especially living in such a small community with no organic or whole foods markets. But I'm still researching and trucking on. One little tidbit that was passed on to me recently was how to get all of that waxy chemical off of your produce safely. There are sprays that are sold for the purpose of "cleaning" your produce, but why would I want to introduce more chemical to the chemical that is already on it!? Anyway... I was told that you can soak your produce (probably not good for more porous things like carrots, broccoli or cauliflower) in white vinegar, rinse in water, scrub dry with a towel and you're good to go! I haven't gotten to try this yet, but I'm going to go pick up some white vinegar tomorrow and give it a shot with some fresh produce!
Alright, let's move on to my next topic of discussion/research...
I'm going to start a sort of series on safe cosmetics. I want to break it into several parts though, because there is so much included in what is considered a "cosmetic" when researching all of this detailed information. In this segment, I'd like to sort of introduce what is going on in the campaign for safe cosmetics and what it's all about.
The campaign for safe cosmetics started roughly ten years ago. It came to the attention of cosmetics developers and analysts that there are some seriously unhealthy chemicals being pumped into our shampoos, conditioners, baby wash, makeup and more and they wanted to understand why. What are all those big words on the back or side of bottle, listed in the ingredients section, and why are they necessary? Well, many of them are said to be used as preservatives so that fungi and bacteria don't grow in, say, your body lotion, for instance. One big chemical is called *paraben. Companies who utilize this chemical have done research on the effects of use of one product containing paraben, sure... and that's all well and good. However, paraben is a very common chemical, used in the majority of our cosmetic products. So, really, this research is of no use. They aren't looking at the use of multiple products containing paraben over several decades of life, only one product over maybe a few years.
*find a summary on the effects of parabens here.
Now, as I mentioned, there are several chemicals that sort of send up a red flag among analysts. Here is a list of the main chemicals of concern:
| Triclosan |
| Synthetic Musks |
| Formaldehyde and Formaldehyde-Releasing Preservatives |
| 1,4-dioxane |
| Hydroquinone |
| Phthalates |
| Parabens |
| Lead and Other Heavy Metals |
| Nitrosamines*all listed on http://www.safecosmetics.org/article.php?list=type&type=46 Now, give that a gander. Notice anything you may have heard of before? Perhaps from high school science? That's right, I'm talking about formaldehyde. Remember this stuff? It's what your frog in biology class sat in so that it wouldn't decompose before you got to dissect it. Do you remember the smell of it? Do you perhaps recall how seriously your teacher warned you to be cautious and always wear your gloves and goggles while touching and handling the frog? That's because it's dangerous and a known probable carcinogen. So why in the world is it in my nail polish, and how can it impact my health? Research done by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics found that it can lead to serious skin sensitivity and allergies, to begin with. Also, according to the National Cancer Institute, being a carcinogen (like those found in cigarettes), prolonged exposure to formaldehyde can possibly lead to the mutation of cells, eventually leading to the formation of cancerous cells. Alright, so I think that I have established that formaldehyde is bad. However, there are so many more chemicals that I want to address, all of which are so potentially dangerous for us to have regular exposure to, and I plan to get into some good detail on all of that. But before I do that, I'd like to take a quick step back and talk about how I even got started in my research into safe cosmetics. I'm going to cut my blog short here and leave you with this video that really explains my concerns and why I even decided to look into the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. I first saw this video about a year ago, while I was still pregnant and it really changed how I thought about shopping, bathing, using makeup and all cosmetics, even down to my deodorant and lip balm. Keep it crunchy! Ashley Check in soon for part 2: Explaining the chemicals in your cosmetics |
