Did you know that many of the man made chemicals in personal care products such as skin care, make-up, and deodorant can harm your body and your organs? These ingredients can disrupt your hormones, digestion, brain health and more. Some can damage your DNA and are linked to cancer and other significant health disorders!
The Environmental Working Group, a great website that you can search, has much more information as well as an awesome app that allows you to scan the bar code of your products to check the hazard score.
As part of my healing journey, and what I recommend to my clients is to slowly replace your skin care/body care/make-up products as you run out. Not all the products in health food stores, even when they are organic, are necessarily safe. You need to read the label and look for products that do not have a long list of ingredients that are man-made chemicals.
A good, inexpensive, soap is Dr. Bronner’s. You can also use natural oils such as olive oil (Kasadrinos is the absolute best – inside and out!), coconut oil or tallow to moisturize your skin. When I gave up my conventional products I initially transitioned to Dr. Bronner’s soap for my body and organic coconut oil to cleanse my face and as a moisturizer.
I like to purchase organic coconut oil, which you can get at many grocery stores including Trader Joe’s or Natural Grocers.
Speaking of natural deodorant, I’ve tried a number of different brands and I’m convinced, as in just about anything, there is no one size fits all. One of my favorite is Schmidt’s. However, to really save some money and get a pretty effective deodorant, you can make you own quite easily. Here’s a recipe I used to make a batch for my youngest son who is still home with us:
3-ingredient deodorant:
-
-
-
- 2 tablespoons baking soda,
- 2 tablespoons organic tapioca or arrowroot powder, &
- 3 tablespoons of organic coconut oil.
-
-
Whip it all together with a hand mixer and scoop into a previously used container like the one pictured or a store bought empty tube (online here or at a local homesteading supply store – I think I saw them at Natural Grocers too), or just use a little mason jar and then harden in the fridge.
I’m all about options so now if you want to get fancy, my FAVORITE safe beauty brand, is COUNTER (formerly BeautyCounter)! I love their mission, their beautiful high performance cosmetics, their gorgeous packaging, and their skin/sun care for the entire family. And most of all, I love that they are working to promote change in our U.S. Government policies to bring safer products to everyone.
Do you have a favorite natural care product you love? How about quick and easy recipes? If you do please share…
Originally published Sep 5, 2014. Recently updated.
