Chemicals Banned For Use In Cosmetics

Who regulates cosmetics in the United States? NO ONE. In 1938 the cosmetic industry was granted self-regulation. Nothing has changed since 1938. The FDA isn't even authorized to approve cosmetic ingredients. The U.S. Federal Government doesn't require health studies or pre-market testing on personal care products. Manufacturers are free to use almost any ingredient they choose. As a result, we are exposed to thousands of harmful chemicals that are banned in other countries.

So what can you do? 

Read labels - you can't bank on the what the bottle says. Unfortunately in this country, we have issues with label laws too. If a product has one natural ingredient, added to 10 chemicals, they are legally allowed to label the bottle as "all natural". Be sure to always read the label and read every ingredient.

Familiarize yourself with chemicals  - you need to know what chemicals to stay away from. Refer to the Dirty Dozen list that highlights the 12 most common toxic & carcinogenic compounds found in cosmetics.

Take advantage of EWG - Environmental Networking Group is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to protecting human health and the environment. If you click on the EWG Verified tab, they review thousands of personal care products and give their approval on products that meet their strict standards. 

Splurge vs. Steal

Beautycounter's cleansing balm is one of my all time favorite products. It's a light, airy balm with a hint of cranberry oil to give it an amazing scent. Deemed as the balm that does it all, you can use it as a cleanser or a moisturizer. Made with sunflower seed wax and a mix of oils, such as, avocado, jojoba, sweet almond and raspberry. Formulated without items from their Never List, you are guaranteed safe ingredients. It comes with a hefty price tag of $80 and you have to buy it from a Beautycounter rep.

Acure also launched a cleansing balm. Also a light, airy and pepperminty fresh balm that comes in an easy to use stick. Made with rose hip oil, sea kelp and cactus flower. I just got this and I'm very impressed with it. Although it doesn't have a dual purpose like the Beautycounter, the cleanser works quite well leaving your skin super soft. 100% vegan, paraben free, sulfate free, phthalate free, mineral oil free, petroleum free, silicone free, and cruelty free. This comes with a very reasonable price tag of $9.99 and available at your local Target.

Safe Sunscreen

There are so many sunscreens out there to choose from. Most of them do more harm than good. They are filled with toxic ingredients that may be worse for your skin than the sun itself. 

It's very easy to pick a safe one. On the back of every bottle you will see a list of "active ingredients". The only ingredients you want to see here are zinc oxide and/or titanium dioxide. Zinc oxide protects against UVA and UVB light rays, prevents burns and signs of photo-aging. Titanium dioxide is a fine white powder that occurs naturally. It's a very effective UV filter.

The bad sunscreens have active ingredients such as oxybenzone, avobenzone, octisalte, oxtocrylene, homosalate, and octinoxate. These chemicals are linked to cancer, endocrine disruption, organ system toxicity, and may impact hormones. They are highly toxic to you and the environment.

EWG's 12th annual Guide to Sunscreen was just updated for the summer of 2018. This guide contains sunscreen safety ratings to help you make the right purchase. They rate the best sunscreens, SPF-rated moisturizers and lip products. EWG's Guide to Sunscreen

I'm a huge fan of All Good, Alba Botanica, and Goddess Garden products. Always protect your skin with a good chemical free sunscreen. Don't forget to stay hydrated too!

Save Your Skin...

Summer is officially here. We bypassed spring this year and went right from winter to summer. I took my snow tires off at the beginning of May and by the end of May, we are already pushing 90 degrees.  This can wreak havoc on your skin. Especially if you are going out in the sun with winter white skin and getting burned. 

Zausner Solar Recover Save Your Skin Hydrating Mist is an all-natural, fine-mist daily moisturizer that relieves dry, irritated and sunburned skin. The Mist has multiple beneficial uses that will improve the health of your skin especially if used daily. 

It was conceived a few years ago innocently enough when Michael Zausner owned a tennis club in the Southern California desert where the daytime summer temps reached 115 degrees regularly. After being nuked all day the last thing they wanted to do was to smear sticky aloe products on his skin. So they created a fine mist to rehydrate, the criteria for which was simply to use all natural essential and vitamin oils that they knew was healthy for the skin and to make it smell good. Even though as a tennis pro they were very tan, they never took their shirt off. So when they went to the beach one day and got sunburned, they discovered by accident that the spray calmed down the burn and prevented peeling unlike anything else they had ever used. They began testing it all over the Caribbean on themselves by purposely lying out in the sun and burning themselves with consistent results that saved many a vacation. Hence the slogan "The Only Animals We Test On Are Ourselves".

Ingredients - distilled water, natural vitamin E, calendula, lavender oil, sesame oil, geranium oil, roman chamomile oil, sandalwood oil and French seaweed absolute.

You can buy it at Lori's Natural Foods, Lucky Vitamin and Amazon

I keep the bottle right in shower. Spray directly on skin and rub in. I use it daily at this time of year, whether I have been in the sun or not. It doubles as a great moisturizer and smells amazing. it's a light, refreshing, easy to use spray for those of you who don't have time to moisturize. Just spray and go!

Purifying Hydro Sponge

Earth Therapeutics makes one amazing body sponge. Infused with purifying medicinal bamboo charcoal and interwoven with textured fabric to help cleanse and draw out toxins. This hydro sponge is textured to gently exfoliate away the outer layers of dead skin to unclog pores. An embedded infusion of medicinal bamboo charcoal enhances the cleansing process by drawing out impurities. It also stimulates circulation so skin can breathe freely. After regular periodic exfoliation, skin will benefit from the deep clean feeling soft, smooth, and healthy.

To use, wet in warm water, apply your favorite chemical free cleanser (such as Carolina Castile Soap, EO All-Purpose Soap or Nubian Heritage Soap) and gently massage the skin. The frequency of use really depends on the sensitivity of your skin. They recommend using it at least once a week but I read reviews where people use it every day. Personally I use it every other day. 

After using sponge, hang to dry. Replace the sponge every 3 months or so, depending on how often you use it.

You can buy the sponge at Ulta, Amazon and on the Earth Therapeutics website. 

Acure Brilliantly Brightening - Part II

I recently posted about this Brilliantly Brightening Acure line but since it's SO good, it's worth a second post. Originally I only bought the gel cleanser and the night cream. After I fell in love with both of those, I bought a few more. I got the day cream, facial scrub, face mask and glowing serum. I can't rave enough about all of them. My skin is glowing and looks the best it has in years. 

Day Cream - Face the day with CoQ10, gotu kola and argan oil. This powerhouse combo helps moisturize and protect with a one-two-three punch that fights dullness and evens out skin tone for skin that’s bright and beautiful.

Facial Scrub - “Seas” the day with natural exfoliation from the ocean. Sea kelp super-nutrients soften and detoxify, while lemon peel and French green clay cleanse without stripping away natural moisture. Madonna lily brings the brightness to round out this refreshing facial scrub.

Face Mask - Moroccan argan extract conditions and moisturizes while chlorella brings a boost of skin-benefiting vitamins and omega 3s for extra glowing goodness.

The Glowing Serum - Argan oil restores moisture, borage oil soothes and cranberry and pumpkin seed oils add antioxidant protection. That’s some serious glowing goodness. Bonus: it doubles as a makeup remover 

As a reminder, their products are paraben free, sulfate free, phthalate free, mineral oil free, petroleum free, silicone free, cruelty free and 100% vegan. Their products do not contain synthetic fragrances or artificial colors.

Ditch the Dry Cleaning

I don't know about you, but the smell on clothes when they come back from the dry cleaner is unbearable. Not to mention the terrible things dry cleaning does to your skin and the environment.

Perchloroethylene is used by 80-90 percent of all dry cleaners. It's a neurotoxin and causes cancer in lab rats. It's also a major groundwater contaminant, found in more than 25 percent of U.S. water supplies. It's toxic to wildlife, especially fish. A recent study found that food, stored in a car with dry-cleaned clothing for one hour, absorbed levels of perchloroethylene. An EPA study found that people have perc in their breath after visiting dry cleaners. Yuck!

Break-up with your dry cleaner and do it yourself.

First grab a spray bottle. Any time you use essential oil, you should use glass. Over time, the essential oils will eat through the plastic. It's so hard to find larger glass spray bottles. I can find them in 2oz, 3oz and even 4oz but anything larger than 4oz seems impossible to find. So I used a plastic bottle for this, I go through the solution so fast that it hardly sits in the bottle for long.

Grab some vodka. Vodka kills odor-producing bacteria and does not leave a lingering aroma. Go to the liquor store and get a 90 proof bottle of cheap vodka. The cheaper the better (save the Kettle One for your martinis). I found one for a whopping $9.99.

Grab some distilled water. I always have it on hand because i use it in my garment steamer. You can by a gallon of it for less than a dollar.

Lastly, grab your essential oils. You need lavender and tea tree. Lavender has tremendous antibacterial and deodorizing properties. Tea tree is known for its antiseptic properties. Not only do they smell nice, they kill bacteria.

Now here is the hard part (kidding). Mix 2 parts vodka, one part distilled water, and four drops of each oil and viola you have your own dry cleaning spray!

Turn your garment inside out and put it on an hanger. Spray the areas where you sweat, armpits, neckline etc. and make sure you fully saturate these areas. Don't be stingy, make sure they are soaked.  Then do a quick spray over the whole garment. Hang dry until the saturated areas are fully dry, I usually leave overnight. Obviously this only works to deodorize, it's not meant for stains.

EO Meyer Lemon All Purpose Soap

As soon as I heard they brought this product back, I ordered a few bottles. Lucky for me, they got delivered yesterday. EO All Purpose Soap is life changing. If you are obsessed with lemons like me, you will love the scent. It smells like fresh cut lemons. It's made with pure essential oils of Lemon and Mandarin Orange for a refreshing, uplifting aroma. It's a gentle non-toxic cleaner formulated without sodium lauryl/laureth sulfates (SLS). It's extremely versatile and there are so many things you can use it for. When they say "one soap, hundreds of uses" they aren't lying.

Laundry - add 2 squeezes per machine load. Soak delicates in sudsy water for an hour, then rinse.

Dishes - use 1/2 squeeze per load in the dishwasher. If you wash dishes by hand, one squeeze on a brush or sponge. It's great for tough pots and pans.

Camping - safe to use while roughing it in the great outdoors. EO All Purpose Soap is environmentally friendly and made with biodegradable surfactants.

Your home - spritz on any surface for a (green) deep-clean. Add 2 squeezes to a 16-oz spray bottle and shake.

Floors and carpets - add a little soap to a bucket of warm water. Mop hardwood and tile, and gently scrub carpet stains.

Car - use 3oz. soap per gallon of water and a soft sponge. Great on hubcaps and windows too.

Paint brushes - soak brushes in 2oz. + 16oz. warm water, then comb bristles with a wire brush.

BBQ grill - Scrape off the remains of last summer with a hard-bristled brush and some soap diluted in warm water.

Pets - 2 squeezes in warm water and scrub away.

And finally, you - wrap up all your cleaning with a pH-balanced hand soap, gentle enough for every day. Since it has a mild pH with a range of 4.5 to 5.5, it's perfect to use as a body wash or in the bath.

So ditch your Tide, your Dawn and all those other chemical cleaners you own and replace it with EO All Purpose Soap. A 32oz bottle comes in at $10.99. Since you only use a few squeezes for all those household items, it should last you a while.

Its only available on the EO website so grab some today!

Acure Brilliantly Brightening Products

Acure is a family owned and operated company founded on sustainable principles to provide the highest quality natural and certified organic personal care. Their products are paraben free, sulfate free, phthalate free, mineral oil free, petroleum free, silicone free, cruelty free and 100% vegan. Their products do not contain synthetic fragrances or artificial colors.

I recently purchased the Brilliantly Brightening Cleansing Gel and the Brilliantly Brightening Night Creme. I gravitated towards these because my skin is so dull and dry from this harsh winter we have had. It's been cold and snowy and at this rate, I may not take my snow tires off until May. All kidding aside, this line can help. Antioxidant-rich pomegranate, blackberry and acai team up in the cleansing gel while chlorella, echinacea and argan oil join forces to moisturize in the night cream. Both have a light, refreshing citrus scent. A little goes a long way with both products, especially the night cream. You only need a tiny amount to cover your whole face and neck. My skin feels hydrated and radiant after using it for just a few days. I'm definitely going to grab the Brilliantly Brightening Facial Scrub.

You can view the full Brilliantly Brightening line here.

Acure products are available directly on their website, at Target, at Wegmans and on Amazon.

Nubian Heritage Soap

If I'm not using Castile Soap, I'm using Nubian Heritage Soap. Their Mango Butter and African Black Soaps are my favorites, but the entire line of is amazing.

Nubian Heritage started over 23 years ago as street vendors in Harlem. They pride themselves on creating safe, non-irritating and gentle products to cleanse, treat and moisturize. They've mastered ingredients from around the world, such as black seed oil, buriti oil, haitian vetiver, tamanu oil, mango butter, raw shea butter, frankincense, papaya extract, myrrh, neem oil, lemongrass, chai Tea, avocado butter, tea tree oil and many more. 

What's not in their products is just as important as what is. They manufacture products without potentially harmful synthetic ingredients that may have an impact on our health and our environment. Nubian Heritage products do not contain sulfates, parabens, phthalates, paraffin, gluten, propylene glycol, DEA, silicones, mineral oil, petroleum, triclosan, synthetic fragrance or artificial color. The brand is cruelty-free and doesn't test on animals. 

You can view the entire line of Nubian Heritage products here. They have soap, oils, scrubs, body wash, lotions, bath bombs and deodorant. You can buy their products directly on their website, at Target, at The Vitamin Shoppe and at Wegmans. If you are lucky enough to live by a Wegmans, their soaps are on sale this week for $1.99. Stock up!