Thursday, July 17, 2008

Face Green

I used to subscribe to that myth that once you leave the puberty stage your skin magically becomes clear and beautiful. Cameron and I are both finding out that isn't so... why are we still dealing with facial skin issues into our 30s???

As the second installment of my "green" education from the magically Green Chic book I am reading, I wanted to focus on skincare. Of course it makes sense that all this crap we put on our skin even in the name of cleansing is probably not really helping with all of the fragrances and chemicals that are included. Why didn't I think of that? So although I think it's good that you wash your face, it's probably better to wash your face with something slightly more natural sans chemicals. Apparently a lot of cleansers have some form of formaldehyde in them (yuck... I'm not dead) as well as other pore clogging and environmentally hazardous ingredients. According to my book, the following should be avoided for stated reasons... (take this all with a grain of salt, but I figure natural is almost always better than the chemically artificial alternative...)

1. Parabens - hormone disruptors and linked to breast cancer
2. Phthalates - usually listed under other names for synthetic fragrances
3. Petroleum - obviously
4. Toluene
5. Formaldehyde - it's a carcinogen and can often go by the name quaternium-15


I looked at my bottle of facial cleanser last night expecting to see a lot of parabens and other items, and I was not disappointed. They were all there. Luckily, I had already decided to make the switch to something a little more natural. I don't know what that is just yet, but I will let you know when I do.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I haven't checked all the ingredients yet, but if you are looking for products for the nairn, Burts Bees Baby Bee line is paraben free, and they also use recycled materials in their packaging. We use the lotion for Keira, but she is afraid of the/any bubble bath, so I use that instead for me. It does have a fragrance, so I am not sure what chemicals use it. It it pretty easy to find in MI, it is at the grocery stores and Target. Fit Pregnancy had a link at one point (I haven't looked in a while) where you could check your products on it for various chemicals.