Un-natural natural products & what to avoid

For anyone who is trying to switch to more natural products (whether that be soap, shampoo, moisturizer, etc.), it can be a daunting task. First off, there is little to no regulation for use of the word "natural," so any company can claim their products are such, even if only 1 of all the ingredients is natural (or none! - it may have taken natural ingredients like plant derivatives, and swapped molecules and changed the chemical structure of the ingredient into something completely different than what was started with!) So where the heck do you start, if products clearly labelled as natural, aren't even necessarily natural? How do you avoid spending your money on a 'natural' product, that is in fact on chemical par with all the other products the un-natural beauty industry throws at us, and truly invest in good quality truly natural products? You've got to read the label! & to make it a bit easier, here are a few tips & hints of ingredients to watch out for (though this is far from a conclusive list).

1) First and foremost, one of the most awesome changes you can make is by avoiding 'fragrance' or 'parfum' (unless it is solely essential oil derived). Perfume is in EVERYTHING, but if you're willing to be conscientious of what you are putting on (and therefor in) your body, this change can significantly lower the amount of chemicals you are exposed to on a daily basis. Since the perfume industry does not have to reveal any of what they put in their products (it is considered 'trade secret'), there is a whole array of strange chemicals (like nasty pthalates, which have been linked to scary things such as infertility and abnormal reproductive development in males) which you won't see on the ingredient list, but will be included under the title 'fragrance'. Companies that produce moisturizers, shampoos, etc. use fragrances in their products to, yes, make it smell appealing and pleasant to you, the consumer, but also to mask all the weird scents the chemical ingredients in their products have created! Avoid all of the above by choosing fragrance-free, or products scented only with natural essential oils.

2) Another thing you can look to avoid on labels: anything ending with '-eth,'  this means it has gone through the ethoxylation process (eg. sodium lauryl sulphate becomes sodium laureth sulphate), meaning it has most likely been exposed to, and containing (but you won't see it on the label!), the nasty carcinogenic ingredient 1,4 dioxane.

3) Now that you're avoiding perfumes and -eths, a third to add to the chemical party which you will not be attending is dmdm hydantoin! This little baby is a yucky formaldehyde releaser; on contact with your skin it becomes a carcinogenic substance. Not so nice!

Take time to research 'natural' products before you buy them! My philosophy is that if I'm going to shell out more money to have a better-for-me, natural product, then it better be just that - all natural! I'm a pretty frugal gal, and the last thing you'll find me doing is buying a product just because it says 'natural' on the front - read the ingredient list (nutritional info for your body!) & use the Cosmetic Database! If there's perfume in it, it's not all natural! If it has an ingredient that ends with -eth in it, or contains dmdm hydantoin, it's not all natural! If it has weird ingredients you can't pronounce, or you don't know what they are, you guessed it, it's probably not all natural! Take the time to do a bit of research and your skin, and your pocketbook, will thank you.