Another rant!

During the past few years that I’ve been aware of how our modern world is often hurting us more than helping us, I’ve been realizing that many of the everyday products I’m using contain all kinds of crazy ingredients. Heck, I guess it even stems back farther than a few years…I used to read the cereal box during breakfast when I was younger. I’d first check out the fun games or whatever was on the back of the box, but I’d always end up reading the nutrition facts and the ingredients on the side panel. At the time I remember wondering how they decided to add all the unpronounceable ingredients to regular old breakfast cereal. I mean the corn, sugar and oil type of stuff made sense to me, but the stuff like sodium lauryl sulfate and trisodium phosphate…how the heck did those get in there?! They are cleaning agents for crying out loud!

Anyway, enough about food…my feelings about what we’re eating could fill a book. This post is about cosmetics. My friend Jen posted the following video link on her Facebook page:

It’s definitely worth watching. We slather all kinds of personal care products on our bodies every day. I have been covering myself from head to toe in shampoo, hairspray, lotion, body spray, makeup, nail polish, etc. for years and years without thinking about what’s really in the stuff. The scary thing is that the things we put on our bodies end up in our blood stream! That gives me serious cause for concern.

The hard part for me is that I’m a self-proclaimed girly girl. I love to use a host of products to coif my hair into the perfect style, apply a face of makeup to feel a little bit glamorous from day to day, paint my fingers and toes a fun new hue and lotion and spray myself to leave a yummy scent in my wake. I really don’t want to have flat hair, a bare face and stinky armpits…it’s just not me!

So my challenge has been to find products that allow me to indulge my love of primping while supporting my ideals. I think it’s going to take some effort, but all good things come at a cost. This website is an incredible database that allows me to look up any product or category of products to find the risk rating. I was surprised to learn that my beloved Burt’s Bees carries products with a moderately hazardous rating…not every product, but some are worse for me than I thought!

On a local level, I have been introduced (by Jen again!) to Dirty Girl Farms. This is a local company that produces all-natural, chemical free products. The founder of the company can be spotted at a booth in the Royal Oak farmers market and she’s lovely! A true testament to the awesomeness of her products. So far I’ve only purchased the Calendula Deodorant (which has been successful in tackling my stinky pits!) but I plan to explore more of her line as I use up my old crap (waste not; want not) and venture into better products.

That’s all for now…stay tuned for more rants ;)