Cut The Chemicals From Your Personal Care
How do you choose your personal care products? Do you identify and reduce the chemicals you are exposed to every day? Your body has to use or eliminate all this stuff. If your digestion and detox channels get overloaded undigested waste, ama builds up and slows you down.
Decide to use natural healthy food products on your body. You will love how you feel. In choosing health as the cornerstone of a full rich life, examine how all the stuff you apply to your body every day builds or depletes your vibrancy and take action where needed. Share this wisdom with your clients. Reducing pollution in the body really counts to support recovery and rebuild wellness.
Most commercial products for the skin, hair and face are not food and can’t be used to nourish and replenish tissues. So your body has to both detoxify and dispose of them. When the trash can’t get taken out it builds up as ama, or undigested waste in your body. Too much ama can hurt your health. Make the changes you need to feed and nourish your skin, hair and face each morning.
The Facts on Chemicals in Personal Care
“The average US woman uses 12 personal care products and/or cosmetics a day, containing 168 different chemicals, according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG). While most men use fewer products, they’re still exposed to about 85 such chemicals daily, while teens, who use an average of 17 personal care products a day, are exposed to even more.””
When you are trying to recover from illness or uplevel wellness you have to examine everything that will help your body make the journey. I know I needed to do this as part of my recovery from Lyme disease. My body was overwhelmed with infection, inflammation and toxic build up, I was miserable.The last thing it needed was extra work for my detox channel.
Everything I put into or apply onto my body needs to nourish it, build health and vibrancy. With this perspective would you make changes to your skin and hair care?
My illness drove me to examine and learn about the chemicals that I used on daily basis. Drastic change was imperative. So I went through my bathroom cabinet and threw out almost everything and instead I started buying organic foods to use on my body.
How about you – do you want to clean up your personal care? Coaches – can you help your clients build wellness by lowering their chemical exposure?
Clean Up Your Skin Care Products
Apply Organic Oil not lotion on your skin. Instead of using lotion massage oil regularly onto your skin. Your skin is your largest organ. It is permeable which means things flow in and out. Your body has to detox anything unnatural that gets in through your skin.
The probiotic organisms that live on our skin and our skin cells know that oil is food and lotion is not. Oil massage keeps the body’s first line of defense, the skin, lubricated and healthy. Our skin and biome face a hostile environment filled with pollution, harsh soaps, and chemicals.
A healthy skin biome helps protects us and helps us stay well by;
- Promoting smart healthy skin reaction to toxins and allergens
- Mounting a more accurate response to occasional skin inflammation.
- Enhancing the skin’s protective capabilities.
- Making the skin less fun for bugs to bite.
In addition oil massage supports lymph movement and detox. When you practice abhyanga or oil massage you put less toxins in and help move the ones you have out. I call that a win win. Simple oil massage done regularly has been shown to improve our immune response to toxins stress and pathogens. Oil has a heavy quality which grounds, balances and support a strong container ready to face a fast paced world.
Why oil and not lotion? Oils are a natural substance, a healthy fat that the body can use directly. It is clean, unlike lotion (which can often contain preservatives and other ingredients that are foreign to the body and contribute to toxic build up).
Kick Hair Dye to the Curb
Go natural. Consider not coloring your hair. Over 70% of women color their hair, so this is a big one. Hair dye is full of toxins and you are applying it to your head where your brain and sense organs live. Many women get rashes and headaches from the dye chemicals. This should send up a warning flag. Check this link for some more details on the chemicals in hair dye.
I dyed my hair for years, but when I got sick hair dye was one of the first toxic practices I kicked to the curb. My hair dresser argued with me, that I would look older and haggard, but I was committed to regaining wellness. Funny, building wellness made my whole body, skin, hair and face look younger and more vibrant. It was liberating to stop. I love my salt and pepper locks.
Here is a lovely quote on gray hair.
“They’re not gray,” Mom barks at me as she opens her door. “They’re strands of glittery goodness.”
It is okay to go gray! Here is an article on ways to ease the transition to gray. Dying your hair is expensive, and time consuming. Many people color once a month for 30+ years. This adds up to a lot of chemical exposure. If you have to be a redhead and nature gave you gray, go organic with dye and stretch out time between dye jobs. EWG has a listing for safer hair dyes. Check it out.
Feed Your Face Not Just Your Mouth
Buy face care cleansers, makeup, and lip balms with no petroleum based ingredients or parabens. There are food grade moisturizers and makeup available. For cleaner less toxic options stick with organic or go straight to organic food.
Try shea nut butter instead of petroleum jelly. Organic rose water makes a great toner. Apply foods like organic avocado to your face for moisture instead of chemicals. I don’t use many products now, I prefer organic foods.
Start your journey to kick toxins to the curb by applying healthy organic foods to your skin hair and face. This will lighten the load on your detox channel and your hair and skin will love you for it.
Do you have a favorite food based skin or hair care idea? Please share in the comments below and help us all cut the chemicals in personal care and feed our body.
