A Closer Look At Your Household Products

What if someone gave you a bottle that contained substances linked to immonotoxicity, neurotoxicity, cancer, organ toxicity, reproductive toxicity, developmental toxicity, endocrine disruption and allergies and told you to put it on your skin?

What if I told you the above description is of ingredients used in a popular brand name body lotion?

This is just one example of the many products in our homes that contain such ingredients.

At this point, you might be wondering, “What’s the big deal?” I mean, surely they wouldn’t be so prevalent or allowed in our homes if they posed such a threat. And that’s a valid point. But as we discussed in the previous post, there's a lot we don't know about the effect these ingredients have on our bodies and environment through our contact with them.

When it comes down to it, I don’t like the idea of known carcinogens, toxins and irritants being a part of my daily life. And this is why I have chosen to eliminate these ingredients from our home as much as possible.

In the last post, we ended with a couple of questions. So, let's talk about them.

How do you know which ingredients to avoid?

It all starts with reading labels. But what are you supposed to do if you can hardly pronounce the ingredients in products, let alone know what they are? Before you get too overwhelmed, I am happy to say there is an organization that is doing a lot to take the guess work out of knowing if an ingredient is safe or not. And they’ve even gone a step further and rate the safety of products themselves.

The Environmental Working Group is a non-profit organization that is working to use the power of public information to protect public health and the environment. They have created Skin Deep, a database of ingredients, products and brands, to provide you with the information you need to make a decision about which products to use.

This database is invaluable to me. I use it frequently to assess the ingredients in products I’m interested in buying. And in the beginning of my transition to more natural products, I was able to educate myself about the products I was using. It was then that I realized just how many chemicals I was putting myself into contact with.

Additionally, they have a handy Shopper's Guide with the top ingredients to avoid, which you can print out and reference when selecting products.

I'll go into more detail about these ingredients in a future post.

Does the fact that a product says it’s “all natural” or “organic” mean it’s safe?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Popular brand Burt’s Bees is a good example of a company that advertises natural products, but many aren't very natural. Several of their products don’t rate well when you look them up on the Skin Deep database.

That’s why it is important to read the labels yourself. It can sound like a lot of work, but after a little practice, it’s very easy to glance at the back of a product and know ingredients to look out for, especially with the resources available.

Still feeling a little overwhelmed? Don’t worry; I’ll be sharing some of my favorite products and even recipes you can use to make your own products at home!

So, here’s a question for you all: What resources do you use to research the products you use in your home?