What The Cosmetic Companies Don’t Want You To Know About Skin Care – Excerpt
By Kathi Casey –
Let’s not forget that our skin is actually an organ. It isn’t a hard shell like our friend the tortoise, nor is it merely a covering for our internal organs. Would you even consider adding the tiniest bit of engine degreaser (SLS) to another organ like your liver or kidneys? I think not, then why use it on your skin? I cannot stress enough the importance of reading and understanding the ingredient labels of anything that you put in your body or on your skin.
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Upon checking the studies, I found several, including a clinical double blind crossover study, which found that people who used toothpaste containing SLS had a much higher incidence of canker sores than those who used tooth cleaner without SLS6. OK, so toothpaste is used in your mouth – canker sores are in your mouth – why, I ask, is this ingredient still used in almost all of the toothpastes on the market? And why don’t more TV and news reports talk about it? OK, I won’t go there…
I only found one toothpaste, Burt’s Bees, in any of the major chain stores, that did not contain SLS. In whole foods or health food stores I found a few others, including my favorite, by Desert Essence and it’s SLS free, fluoride free and gluten free! I like the tea tree oil and Neem version because the Neem provides the added benefit of whiter teeth. I drink a lot of tea and it stains my teeth, but I have not needed to use whitening strips since I’ve been using the Neem and tea tree oil toothpaste!
SLS is also known as Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate7 so when you read the labels, look for either name. I carry a magnifying glass in my purse now, so I can actually read all that fine print on all the labels. Geez! Now it’s not only food labels that we need to read all the time, but anything and everything we use in our homes and on our skin and hair…
I used to think that Oil of Olay or Dove body wash with their creamy textures were good for my skin, yet I still had a problem with dry skin. You’ll be glad to know, ladies, that those products have SLS too. I have been trying various soaps that do not contain SLS or any other chemical that I would not ingest, and my skin feels fabulous now. My skin retains it’s own natural oils now, and I feel very sexy in shorts or a bathing suit. So here are two of my favorite natural soap picks:
1. One With Nature Dead Sea Mineral soaps are all natural, last a long time, clean without drying your skin, come in 7 different scents and they also lather well! All of these are glycerin based soaps with Shea butter, essential oils, and other naturally good ingredients like oatmeal or honey. Their colors come from plants and minerals as well. My favorite is the honey almond, but my daughter loves the lavender. You’ll find great prices on these soaps at Vitacost.
2. Scentastics sells a wonderful goat’s milk soap that also contains no detergents or sulfates and makes my skin feel soft and luxurious. The goat’s milk is used as a moisturizer and these soaps also use coconut oil, another favorite of mine for soft skin and one that we’ll discuss further in the section on moisturizers. Here’s a link to my blog post on the benefits of coconut oil.
Those of us who like a good soak will find Himalayan salt baths rejuvenating. These salts help slough off dry skin and can detoxify the skin and can be found in most whole foods markets. I have also used a very inexpensive bag of lavender scented Epsom salts found in my local drug store in my warm bath and found their detoxing effect just as good as the more expensive Himalayan version. Use two or three large bags of the Epsom salts (they’re about $4.00 each) and you’ll feel heavenly when you’re done. A twenty minute soak is recommended in the directions, and I find that just about right. I sometimes have to add a little more hot water half way through, but after 20 minutes, I’m done.
Also, for a really good detox, try a clay mud bath. Cleaning the tub after a clay bath is a bit of work, but the resulting silky fresh skin is oh-so-worth-it! I recommend LL’s Magnetic Clay because they use sodium bentonite clay, called “living clay”, which has a much stronger drawing power than the more common calcium bentonite. I mix a half cup of clay with 32 ounces of water and pour it into my bath. It absorbs any chlorine that may be in your water and it pulls out toxins from your body, how cool is that?
Kathi Casey, “The Healthy Boomer Body Expert” is a renowned health and wellness coach, popular Baby Boomer columnist, Amazon bestselling author, has appeared on Fox 23, ABC-8 Evening News, and produces her own TV show, “To Your Health.” She’s the founder of The Healthy Boomer Body Center in Massachusetts. Her book “STOP Back Pain” is an Amazon international best seller. Her blog ranked #10 in nursingschools.net list of 50 top Health Blogs. For the last 9 years, she’s been teaching people how to take charge of their own Health Care – Regardless of what Congress does! http://www.healthyboomerbody.com
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Great tips! Yet another chemical additive used by companies to save themselves money! I have switched to products that limit the amount of artificial additives and use only paraben free skin care products!