safe alternitives to harmful beautie products

[demi]

iv just discovered that many common beautie products such as toothpaste, soaps, shampoos, deoderants, moistureisers ect contain harmful cancer causeing chemicals. so, can anyone suggest safe alternitives that work?

[green_pea]

The moisturiser Green Aura recommended for me is brilliant. I mixed coconut oil, shea butter, palmarosa, frankincense, avocado oil, and evening primrose oil. The approximate measurements are on a post somewhere on here which I can find if you like.

Also, have you tried using witch hazel for deodorant? It's good cause it gets rid of the stink-inducing bacteria forming (or something) but you have to dab it on a couple of times a day, works for me though.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Life contains cancer-causing chemicals!

What specifically is giving you cause for concern? The internet is chocker with bad science - as you know.

[demi]

Life contains cancer-causing chemicals!

What specifically is giving you cause for concern? The internet is chocker with bad science - as you know.

yes i know, everything causes cancer these days

i just think if you can try to avoid as many harmful things as possible it all adds up to reduce your risk of getting it.

but i do remember hearing on the news a few years ago about a link with spray deoderant and breast cancer, and i think its the same things that they use in lots other common beautie products.

[Povester]

I'm working on replacing all those bad things in our house, its trial and error at the moment. Pitrok is probably the greatest success. Our Pitrok is coming up to its first birthday (me and other half share, is that gross??) and still going strong. Works much better for me than antiperspirants and deodorants. We're using Dr Bronners soap for shower gel and shampoo. Still working on the moisturiser and not sure we will ever replace standard toothpaste.

[Helsbells]

Hi Demi,

I am trying to use only natural toiletries too. I have been using natural oils on my skin for about 2 1/2 years now, currently I am using a moisturised ffrom a website called Akamuti, they are based in Wales. They make lots of different types of moisturisers made from things like bees wax, shea butter, wheatgerm oil, jojoba oil etc they are lovely and I will never go back to using chemical creams ever again.
For deodorant I use a deodorisng crystal, I use Simple soap, but am looking to change that too to a soap from Akamuti. The only chemically things I use are tooth paste and shampoo, currently looking for a really good shampoo that will not make my head super super scratch (which all the more natural ones I have tried seem to do) Any suggestions anyone, I used to use head and shoulders, but they seem to have changed their formula and it now makes my hair really heavy and greasy.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Life contains cancer-causing chemicals!

What specifically is giving you cause for concern? The internet is chocker with bad science - as you know.

yes i know, everything causes cancer these days

i just think if you can try to avoid as many harmful things as possible it all adds up to reduce your risk of getting it.

but i do remember hearing on the news a few years ago about a link with spray deoderant and breast cancer, and i think its the same things that they use in lots other common beautie products.

There has been speculation that aluminium compounds and paraben preservatives used in antiperspirants could mimic oestrogen and contribute to breast cancer risk, but this was based on their in vitro properties rather than any in vivo observations and no link - as far as I know - was ever demonstrated. I don't think parabens are much used these days, but they would be listed in the ingredients, so they could be avoided.

My personal bugbear is sodium laurl sulphate, which appears in everything from soap & shampoo to toothpaste. It's a cheap, effective, detergent, but it's also strongly irritant to skin and - I suspect, as a sufferer - makes mouth ulcers more frequent and longer lasting.

[demi]

there are many ingridients in these things which can irritate the skin. iv got excema and i have to be carefull what i put on my skin or it will all flair up.
i get it really bad on my hands from washing up liquid, my skin goes firey red and cracks and bleeds, its horrible. and as soon as i get rid of it it just starts to come back and im in this endless cyle of using steroid hydrocortosone cream which i know is really bad for you to use all the time but nothing else works on it. but its the soaps ect thats the cause of it.

i was looking at the ingridients in my toothpaste and one of the first ones is aluminium! iv not seen paraben anything in the ingridients of things iv got, so thats good, but theres a whole list of other toxic stuff in there.

@ helsbells: have you concidered going no-poo? iv not used shampoo for 2 weeks now and my hair feels good! iv washed it once with bi carb then again last night just with vinigar and to day its all soft, looks like its been washed with poo, and its starting to curl slightly giving it more body ( my hairs really fine and flat usually ). if feels and looks clean and not at all greasy. but i was only washing my hair once a week with shampoo before, i think if you've been washing it more often it will go more greasy at first until your hair ajusts itself and the oils balance out.

[Helsbells]

I am not sure I could bear going no-poo! I get a VERY itchy scalp when I have used anything other than head and shoulders which I have used every other day. I hate having greasy hair.

[AnnaD]

For the past 10 years I've been using Lush aromacreme deodorant which was great, until it was discontinued. Now I use this recipe for deodorant; http://angrychicken.typepad.com/angry_c ... eodor.html
I'm also going to strat making my own sunscreen as I hate having to use stuff full of aluminium. Here's the recipe I plan to use; http://wellnessmama.com/2558/natural-ho ... en-recipe/

[demi]

I am not sure I could bear going no-poo! I get a VERY itchy scalp when I have used anything other than head and shoulders which I have used every other day. I hate having greasy hair.

supposedly, once your hair balances out your itchy/dry skalp problems are supposed to get better, as its the shampoos that causes the irritation. once you stop washing your natural oils away with the shampoo your skin and you hair are supposed to improve.


thanks anna, ill have a look at that.
i like lush, but iv got a feeling they also use the same chemical preservatives which im trying to avoid.

[demi]

For the past 10 years I've been using Lush aromacreme deodorant which was great, until it was discontinued. Now I use this recipe for deodorant; http://angrychicken.typepad.com/angry_c ... eodor.html
I'm also going to strat making my own sunscreen as I hate having to use stuff full of aluminium. Here's the recipe I plan to use; http://wellnessmama.com/2558/natural-ho ... en-recipe/

thanks for the link for the deoderant recipe. i am informing my mum to try to sorce the ingridients online to send me them over as i cant get anything like that here.

i assume if i had left over ingridients i could make a moisturisor from them, just leaving out the bi carb and corn starch( is that the same as corn flour?) ?

[AnnaD]

Yup, corn starch is the same. I actually used arrowroot instead as I had no corn starch. Arrowroot is a good alternative if you are sensitive to corn starch.

[gregorach]

i was looking at the ingridients in my toothpaste and one of the first ones is aluminium!

I very much doubt that. Some aluminium compound, sure, but not aluminium itself.

Both sodium and chlorine are very nasty substances that you certainly wouldn't want to eat, but if you don't get enough sodium chloride (salt), you'll die. Of course, too much isn't good for you either...

[MKG]

That would be aluminium oxide, demi. Not toxic, but a very hard material (rubies and sapphires are made of aluminium oxide) included for its abrasive polishing capability. Perfect white teeth - just a little less of them each time you brush.

Mike