Are we dying to be pretty?
A friend of mine is a former executive in the beauty industry. She had a successful salon, made people look beautiful – even was a leading sales person for one of the top beauty product distributors. But one day she realized that all that beauty could be deadly.
She is now a nurse… and an advocate for safe beauty products.
We have had many discussions about the toxic substances that are the primary ingredients in the health and beauty products that we use on a daily basis. Our shampoo, body wash, deodorant and supposed “natural,” “organic” and other seemingly benign products that we are using for our grooming on the outside are in fact making our insides rather ugly.
Disease is not a pretty thing. So why do the compounds that come wrapped in pretty packages, smelling of everything from cucumbers to exotic flowers, offer the illusion of lasting beauty, while at the same time potentially shortening our lives? Good question. And a question we ought to ask ourselves when making purchases of the products we use every day. It is now understood that even “baby products” are exposing our most precious gifts to toxic danger.
Take a look at this video. It shows the problem in a simple way. But the problem is far from simple, but perhaps the solution to the problem is. Make educated decisions about what you use so that your natural beauty can shine through, even through a tinted moisturizer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfq000AF1i8
Here is another article about the problem that plastics are causing every day.
http://ecosalon.com/plastic-in-food-and-products/
It is interesting how information is reiterated through various means to drive home the point. Just last evening while driving home from the store, where I purchased the very products in question, I was listening to a program on NPR. I wish I could remember the name of the guest, and the host for that matter, but the topic was our oceans and the problem of micro-plastics. I was shocked and saddened to learn that micro-plastics leach into our water supply in many ways, including from the sweet smelling shampoo that washed down the shower drain this morning.
Our synthetic clothes are made of plastics, and with each and every wash some of those particles come out in the wash and enter our ecosystem. Whales can’t tell the difference between krill and micro-plastics, and neither can you…unless you are a marine biologist.
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/29/134923863/moby-duck-when-28-800-bath-toys-are-lost-at-sea
Take a look at this article. http://news.opb.org/article/microplastics-making-their-way-through-food-chain-right-you/
This is not to say that we should never use beauty products ever again. I color my hair, and I wear make up and I like to smell nice. But now when I do these things I am going to be much more inquisitive about the ingredients making up the products I use… not only on my own body but also in and around my home. I love my family and I love my life and I love Mother Earth. Hope you do too.
Elaine Grohman
