I wanted to start today where I left off before talking about my journey through this jungle of organic and not organic food and products.
So after hearing about all the petroleum in my fancy, pretty, shiny lip balms and smelly, delicious lotions I first said, well, I'll just use up what I have because that would be a waste to throw it out. I used the same products for a little while and then I just started throwing them all away. I had bottles upon bottles of Avon lotions and tons of little tubes of lip balms all over the place and I chucked them ALL. After doing more research about petroleum I decided it wasn't worth it, not matter how much product I was throwing out because I did not want to be supporting a company that uses these chemicals in their products. Oddly enough, petroleum is actually banned from being used in any cosmetic products in the European Union, but you can still find the stuff on all the department store shelves of America! Contaminants from petroleum have been found in the breast tissue of women who have breast cancer, which is interesting because don't some of those fancy lotion companies "support" breast cancer?
Here's the list of ingredients for the lotion from one of those companies:
WATER/EAU
ETHYLHEXYL PALMITATE
CETEARYL ALCOHOL
PETROLATUM
PRUNUS ARMENIACA (APRICOT) KERNEL OIL
ISOPROPYL PALMITATE
ORYZA SATIVA (RICE) STARCH
PARFUM/FRAGRANCE
HELIANTHUS ANNUUS (SUNFLOWER) SEED EXTRACT
MELIA AZADIRACHTA SEED EXTRACT
VITIS VINIFERA (GRAPE) SEED EXTRACT
CUCUMIS SATIVUS (CUCUMBER) FRUIT EXTRACT
TOCOPHEROL
CUCUMIS MELO (MELON) FRUIT EXTRACT
GLYCERYL STEARATE
TRIETHANOLAMINE
PEG-40 HYDROGENATED CASTOR OIL
SODIUM CETEARYL SULFATE
CARBOMER
DISODIUM EDTA
DIMETHICONE
TRIMETHYLSILOXYSILICATE
IMIDAZOLIDINYL UREA
METHYLPARABEN
YELLOW 5
YELLOW 10
BLUE 1
Woah! Did you see there at the top, the 4th ingredient? Petrolatum. As we all know by now, ingredients are listed in order of the amount in the product, from the most to the least. So if this list looks like something you might own, you might want to think twice when you go to put it on your body again. Your skin is the biggest organ and whatever you put on your skin goes deep down and can get into your bloodstream. If you are going to start somewhere with using better products and ingredients on your body, this is definitely the best place to start. Pretty much every lotion and/or lip balm you can buy at most regular stores like Walmart or places like Bath and Body Works or Avon products are going to have petroleum (listed as petrolatum) at the top of their ingredient list. So start reading those labels! My basic rule is, if I can't read it or know what it is, I don't what to use it on my body.
Okay, all my yucky lotions are thrown away. I used some Burt's Bees, which is okay, not great, but better than regular stuff and I also found another lotion called Yes to Carrots, which is another okay product. Neither of these companies use petrolatum in their products, but they're still not perfect in any way. The next thing I tried was a Dr. Bronner's lotion because I know their castile soap is a good product and my parents use that. So I tried the lavender coconut lotion, the ingredients were all * as being organic and the lotion worked okay. At the time I was also using a lavender bar of soap and after a while I started to break out in a rash. So naturally, I thought I was allergic to lavender. I stopped using both products and the rash went away. Okay, I'm allergic to lavender. I go about my ways using my Yes to Carrots lotion and I tried some lavender hand salve one day and that didn't give me any rash so that got me wondering. I got the bottle of lotion out and started to really look at the ingredients. One ingredients was an organic ethanol. This threw me a little bit. Why is there ethanol in my lotion? Isn't that in gasoline now?? Ethanol is a by-product of corn, which is why it is being used in gas now because we can "grow" it, but that's a whole other story. So I found through my online research than ethanol can cause skin irritations. Aha! So I am probably not allergic to lavender, which is lovely because lavender smells so nice! Through my research I came upon a particular article that really perked my interest. This is where I really got some insight to this whole deal. Most commercial lotions have water as one of the first ingredients, which you can see with the list of ingredients of the product I posted. So when there is water (it's cheap), you need something to preserve it so it doesn't go moldy, since water will promote bacterial growth, which is where things like ethanol come in. Regular companies use fancy cheap preservatives like parabens and urea, but the "organic" companies use organic ethanol. Since ethanol is an alcohol it dries out your skin. These lotions will have other oils and essential oils in them to counteract the ethanol, but that doesn't always work, as was with my case. The lotion just seemed to make my skin more dry. So you've got some water and some ethanol, but you need something to thicken the lotion or emulsify it. Most "organic" companies will use xanthan gum to emulsify their lotions and then throw in some other oils and scents and BAM, "organic" lotion. Reading more from this particular company I realized that you don't need water in a lotion to make a moisturizing product. Organic coconut oil, shea butter, cocoa butter, and sunflower oil are all lovely moisturizers. Throw in some essential oils and you have an awesome, organic, moisturizer that WORKS. This company is Bubble and Bee Organics and they are my FAVORITE. They truly care about what goes into their products and they are actually organic and safe to use. You can read all the ingredients and they all work. I tell pretty much everyone I know about Bubble and Bee because it is important to support these kinds of companies that are really doing it right. It was a long road to get there, but I did finally get there. Once you really start looking at your products you will be AMAZED at what they put in there. A good reference site is EWG's Skin Deep Cosmetic Database. They have just about every cosmetic product on there rated by toxicity of the ingredients in the product. This is where I started to really see how the stuff I was using measured up.
So now I'm asking you to take a good look at your cosmetics to see how safe they really are. I hope doing some of this research yourself will inspire you to use safer products on not only yourself, but your family as well. Think about what you use on your baby's delicate skin.. is that safe? Are you putting harmful toxins on their skin that can be linked to cancer? Yes, it seems like everything causes cancer, but there are things you can do to prevent harmful toxins from entering your body. EVERYTHING makes a difference. Even if you just start using an organic lip balm and trash your Chapstick - it makes a difference. Bubble and Bee is not the only company that makes safe cosmetics, but it is my favorite. Do your own research and find what you like. Find what's best for you. As always, feel free to share what you find in the comments and I am happy to answer any questions or to just start a conversation about something you found in your research.
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