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6 Ingredients to Watch Out For in Your Current Skincare Routine

Ingredients to Watch for in Skincare FI
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When you consider the number of products you put on your skin through a typical day, and then consider the number of questionable ingredients in each product you use, and then consider the cumulative problems resulting from the combined, regular exposure to each questionable problem, that number can get pretty high. For this reason, here are 6 ingredients to watch out for in your current skincare routine as you work to reduce your daily toxic exposure.

Wanting to Know About What Might be Harming You

As I picked lotions, makeup, shampoo, cleaners, perfumes, soaps, nail polish, and more, I didn’t think about it much other than:

  • whether a product did what I wanted it to do, and
  • how much it cost

But after getting diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, I began to make connections between my health and what I put on my skin, what I cleaned with, what I ate, and what I breathed in.

Something I know for sure, though, is if I’m doing something or choosing something that harms me:

  • I want to know about it,
  • I want to do what I can to reduce or remove the potential for harm.

Protection?

So let me start by sharing with you my initial shock at the number of harmful toxins that are even allowed in shower gels, shampoos, perfumes, face creams, eye shadow, hand soaps, and on and on and on.

Let me explain with just a few little tidbits of information:

  1. the FDA, the government agency that basically oversees cosmetics and body-care products, has no authority to require companies to test cosmetics, etc. for safety
  2. an industry-designated policing panel, the Cosmetics Ingredient Review Panel, has banned 11 ingredients, but restrictions are actually not binding to companies
  3. the FDA does not have the authority to recall a product and companies are not required to report product-related injuries
  4. Federal law allows some ingredients to be left off of labels

Uhhh…sorta feel sucker-punched? Yeah. Me too.

I seriously thought that there were authorities that evaluated products fairly and without bias before allowing those products into the general public.

But let’s hit the brakes for a second.

Before you start wondering if this is one of those anti-authority, conspiracy theory-type post, don’t. It’s not.

This is, however, a post to encourage you to Be Your Own Advocate.

Problems and Links

Many of the choices that you see on the shelves at your local stores and online, and maybe using currently, might have ingredients that have been linked to:

  • hormone dysfunction
  • brain issues
  • allergies
  • thyroid problems
  • various cancers
  • lung disease
  • nervous system issues
  • immune system dysfunction
  • skin reactions
  • reproductive issues

And because women tend to use more products in their hair and on their face, nails, and just their body in general, women also tend to see more health problems relating to these exposures.

Think about it.

Just stop for a moment and think about all the products that come in contact with your skin or hair or you take in somehow (breathing, eating, etc) in a typical day from products like cosmetics, toothpaste, and soaps.

Along with problematic exposures through food, air pollution, and more, if you consider the number of products that you use and how frequently you use them on a daily basis, and the cumulative amount of toxins that you can absorb or breathe in or even eat, Yikes.

Well that’s a lot of exposure to stuff that can build up in your organs and work against your good health.

Watch Out for These Top 6

So if you’re like me and wanting to clean your selections up in this area, here are just a few of the reported toxins to watch out for:

  • Fragrance – look for fragrance, parfum, phthalates, DEP, DBP, and DEHP – found in hair and nail products, lotions, cosmetics, washes
  • Parabens – look for ingredients with paraben in the name or a common replacement, phenoxyethanol – found in hair products, lotions, cleansers and scrubs
  • Triclosan or Triclocarbon – found in antibacterial soaps, detergents, whitening products, antiperspirants, and more
  • Formaldehyde and Formaldehyde-releasing preservatives – look for formaldehyde, quaternium-15, DMDM hydantoin, imidazolidinyl urea, diazolidinyl urea, polyoxymethylene urea, sodium hydroxymethylglycinate, 2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol (bromopol), and glyoxal – found in polishes, glues, gels, hair products, cosmetics, soaps
  • Polyethylene Glycols (PEGs) – usually listed as PEG – found mostly in creamy products
  • BHA and BHT – found in foods, makeup, and skincare

What Can You Do?

In her book, Clean Skin From Within, Dr. Trevor Cates (theSpaDr) explains that “Your skin is like a magic mirror – a device that can offer clues about how healthy your habits are and what’s happening to your body’s internal systems.” So consider the beginning and primary support for your beauty regime to be:

  • Drinking a healthy amount of pure water daily to be hydrated
  • Getting enough sleep consistently to support your body’s detoxification, hormone-balancing, and other important functions that are done during sleep
  • Eating a healthy diet for the nutrients your body needs to do all the things
  • Protecting your skin for damaging chemicals, toxins, and too much sun

Additionally:

  • consider eliminating any products that you might decide are more habit than necessity
  • move to cleaner options to replace 1 or more of the products you are currently using if you discover questionable ingredients
  • pick 1 or more potentially problematic ingredients to strategically watch for and remove
  • make your own cosmetics and skincare produce, and choose your favorite ingredients that are safe

Resource Recommendations

I’ll definitely continue to share information, ideas, recipes, and more on this topic, but you might like the great resources below for information, products, and ideas that I’ve personally used or been helped by:

A Few Reminders

Don’t expect changes to bring about shocking results like health challenges disappearing overnight or growing slightly taller and no longer the shortest person in every room.

Okay, so that might be something I might dream about, but I digress.

So whatever you decide to take from this post, let me encourage you to keep these 3 points in mind:

  1. Remember you are working to lower the contributions to the bucket of problems that can eventually turn into illness and limitations, sort of a non-response reward
  2. Start small. Like Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover and the debt snowball, start with something small or easy to change and build momentum
  3. Prepare for differences in the tastes, textures, and scents and enjoy making changes that can support your health.

Also check out these additional posts for more health-supporting information:

6 Ingredients to Watch Out For in Your Current Skincare Routine