Cosmetics or Flawsmetics ??

Is it just about the food we eat or  Is it about what we think, feel, and digest emotionally and physically. We think that personal care and child care products that are labelled as organic, natural, herbal should contain ingredients that you wouldn’t be afraid to eat.

After all, isn’t that how the word organic or natural or herbal is interpreted in the natural health food industry–to define the purity of food?

Welcome to the sad world of conventional Cosmetics.
Regulations define the word organic or natural or herbal for the foods that you buy. Sadly, there are no regulations defining the word organic for labelling of personal care products. What you put on your skin gets absorbed into your body and into your blood stream. It becomes part of your cells, which becomes part of…YOU.

Think about the headache or quick relief pain creams that are applied to your skin (topical application) and the relief that’s guaranteed through such applications. Same with cigarette nicotine patch. That’s the little patch that you stick on your skin and the chemicals on that patch or on the gel go into your body through your skin and get absorbed into your body.

The bad news is that our skin is the first to show signs of nutritional imbalance, mineral deficiency and body toxicity and as much as it protects us from extra, unwanted chemicals, it can also serve as their VIP direct gate into our bloodstream. It’s the biggest door into our health or out of it.

Our skin eats, so to speak, everything we put on it.  Products, and all their ingredients, are absorbed into the epidermal and dermal layers of the skin, with full access to the bloodstream.  Once in the blood stream the ingredients then have access to every cell in our body, as well as all our organs and even our brain (through the blood-brain barrier).

Beauty Product Ingredients to Avoid:

•    Petrochemicals
Examples include petroleum jelly, isopropyl alcohol or isopropanol, methyl alcohol or methanol, butyl alcohol or butanol, ethyl alcohol or ethanol (often used in skin astringents and perfumes or colognes).

•    Aluminium
It accumulates in the vital organs, competes with calcium for absorption and it can result in reduced skeletal mineralization (which is commonly in toothpaste and deodorants)

•    Sodium laureth/lauryl sulfates and other sulfate-based detergents
Examples include sodium lauryl ether sulfate; sodium laureth sulphate; sodium lauryl ether sulphate (most commonly used in shampoos, shower gel, bubble bath)

•    Propylene glycol and polyethylene glycol, along with various ingredients formulated with PEGs and PGs
Examples include ethylene glycol (used in firming lotions) and propylene glycol (found in everything from deodorant, mascara, baby powder, after shave and more).

•    Formaldehyde & paraben preservatives
Examples include butylparaben, ethylparaben, methylparaben, propylparaben (found in sunscreen, shampoos, shaving gel, toothpaste and more)

•    Synthetic dyes
Examples include anything with alphabets F, D & C preceding it, usually followed by a color and a number. (F representing food, D&C representing drugs and cosmetics), other color additives, including caramel, lead acetate, manganese violet, and more.

•    Artificial fragrances
Avoid most perfumes/colognes, which legally aren’t required to list ingredients to protect their trade mark Because, you know, it helps sales and productivity—to the expense not only of your pocket (your money is work, your work is time, your time is life) but also of your health—whatever you don’t spend on cosmetics, you’ll spend on health insurance.

Here’s a disturbing sampling of ingredients in some popular brands and products used in child care:

Baby Wipes – most Baby Fresh Diaper Wipes contained dimethicone, iodopronpynl butylcarbamate, sodium hydroxyl methl glyanate, BIS-PEG, fragrance, & methylparaben.

Baby Wash – disodium lauroamphodiacetate, cocamidopropyl  betaine, PEG-80, PEG 150 distearate, Quarterium-15, D&C violet #2, & D&C red #33.

Baby Lotion – methylparaben, propylparaben, butylparaben, BHT, fragrance, Red #33.

All of these ingredients range from bonding agents that can irritate/burn skin; a formaldehyde-releasing preservative; carcinogens; allergens; endocrine disruptors; and chemicals that can cause an increased risk of breast cancer, reduced fertility, pregnancy complications, neurotoxicity, immune toxicity, organ system toxicity, developmental/reproductive toxicity, and lung and/or eye irritation.

My advice is, by all means consider what you apply to your skin carefully and if the ingredients look like they are edible then it is a good bet that the product is safe…but for best results, don’t eat it!

BeWell,
Vivek

Trivia:

  • Cosmetic labels containing words like Herbal, natural, organic have no legal definition. Which means your manufacturer can claim so and would get it approved by the authorities.
  • In most countries the certifying organizations have different standards towards level of ingredients being natural or herbal or organic, sadly the universal truth is its significantly lower.
  • Beware of personal care products claiming to use nanotechnology or nana particles; this technology is entirely untested for its side effects.
  • Did you know that 60% of what you rub onto your skin is absorbed through the skin and can be detected in the blood within minutes?
  • Did you know that fragrance chemical ingredients don’t need to be included on product labels?
  • Getting an adequate amount of sleep is key to a healthier skin and in turn a healthier body.   The amount does vary for each individual.
  • Drinking enough water is the best to happen to your skin to get rid of these chemical wastes out of the system.
  • Use the Skin Deep (http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/) Database for research.