For some people the world "natural" stimulates thoughts of lakes and forests and the ocean and mountains, while for others it stimulates thoughts of hippies and underarm hair and body odor and far-fetched claims that your shampoo is going to give you cancer.
I myself used to be in the second category of people; those claims are far-fetched, right? Since we've been using shampoo for decades, and we aren't sprouting cancerous tumors on our scalps, the very place the shampoo goes, it's gotta be a-ok. Not to mention, as if those stand-up body product companies, who campaign for healthy body image and equality, would put toxic chemicals in the very products we douse ourselves in every day. You are cracky as a cracker to claim there are dangerous chemicals in my shampoo!, I would think.
It may not be as simple as that. I'm going to challenge you to grab your favourite bottle of shampoo or conditioner. Now pick out one of those words you don't know the meaning of -let alone how to pronounce it!- (cocamidopropyl betaine? dmdm hydantoin? methylchloroisothiazolinone?) & type this ingredient in to the cosmetic database search engine HERE.
This website rates products on a scale of 0-10 for safety, notes how much research has been done to support the number rating, as well as why the rating is such. (You can even search the product as a whole, as opposed to it's individual ingredients.) You'll find references to studies that show that many of these ingredient are immunotoxic, they "bioaccumulate" - your body absorbs them (for instance through the large pores on your scalp) and stores them, in your fatty tissue, in your organs, wherever it so pleases. & the toxins sit. In you, in your body, the toxins sit. Toxins, that can potentially cause a wide array of bodily disorders, diseases, hormone disruptions, and aggravations - as dangerous as cancer or as 'simple' as eczema.
Skin absorbs 21-94% of what we put on it; what if we start looking at our shampoos' & lotions' & hair-sprays' & cosmetics' ingredient lists the same way we analyze the nutritional box on the side of our cereal?
For the keen, HERE is a link to check out common myths about the safety of cosmetics.
Thank you for this informative look at what we are doing to ourselves and these storage depots called our body
ReplyDeleteWow, very informative...my Shampoo definitely has methylchloroisothiazolinone in it. Funny that even though I use Paul Mitchell Tea Tree (which sounds natural right?) it can be misleading. However that it the ONLY ingredient in it that's somewhat sketchy...everything else in there is quite nice ;)
ReplyDeletePS I love the way you write Deb, you are a pleasure to read! xx -b.