Going Natural with Soaps

Dear Readers,

So for the first week of December, I wanted to focus on soaps.  Natural soaps were some of the first natural products with which I experimented.  Soaps are a simple and easy way to venture into the natural product world.  Most natural soaps out there work fairly well from what I hear from friends and from what I know to be true from personal experience.  The first natural soap I ever tried was a Peppermint Castile Soap made my Dr. Bronner's.  The setting was a shower in Tucson in the middle of August.  It was a glorious experience!  The peppermint in Dr. Bronner's Liquid Peppermint Castile Soap is rather concentrated and leaves you feeling fresh and cool all over, a great relief for me (as you can imagine) in the middle of a Tucson summer.  Dr. Bronner's liquid Castile soaps are olive oil based and gentle on the skin.  If the peppermint is too much of an intense experience for you, you can always try any one of their 7 other scents.  My second favorite is the lavender scent.  My least favorite is Tea Tree.  The Tea Tree smells a bit like old leather, but hey different strokes for different folks right?

One container of Dr. Bronner's can go a long way, especially if used sparingly.  I have found it both at Whole Foods and Kroger.  I have not found that Harris Teeter carries it.  Harris Teeter, however, does carry a similar soap by the name of Dr. Wood, which works just as well.

Why use Dr. Bronner's or other natural soaps as opposed to non-natural soaps?

The answer to this question, as is often the case, lies in the ingredients.  Dr. Bronner's soaps and many other natural soap brands use naturally derived ingredients, such as vegetable and essential oils.

Dr Bronner's soap ingredients:  Water, Saponified Organic Coconut*, Organic Palm* and Organic Olive* Oils (w/Retained Glycerin), Organic Hemp Oil, Organic Jojoba Oil, Essential Oils**, Citric Acid, Vitamin E

Now let us juxtapose these ingredients to those of a (not-to-be-named) name brand non-natural soap:  Water, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Glycerin, Decyl Glucoside, Fragrance, PEG-18 Glyceryl Cocoate, Polyquaternium-10, Cocamidopropyl PG-Dimonium Chloride, Glycol Distearate, Laureth-4, Sodium Benzoate, Citric Acid, Sodium Chloride. (CI 77007), Blue 1 (CI 42090)

See the difference?  If there is one thing you take away from this blog... it is to look at ingredient lists.  After a quick google search I found that Sodium Laureth Sulfate, although not carcinogenic is sometimes found in products also containing 1,4-dioxane - a known carcinogen.  Cocamidopropyl betaine, the second ingredient in the list has been found to be a common allergen, and it seems as though polyquaternium 10's toxicity is questionable.  Admittedly, much of this information comes from Wikipedia.  (Thank you Wikipedia.... Please donate to Wikipedia ya'll).  Therefore, more extensive research needs to be done to fact check me. But overall the verdict does not look so good for the non-natural soap.  And I did not even get through half the ingredient list!

I do not mean for this post to sound like an advertisement for Dr. Bronner's.  I suppose Dr. Bronner's is one of the first and only natural soaps I have ever used.  Hence the bias account.  However, I know there to be many other brands of natural soaps out there that are also worth exploring.  So go and explore my dears, but also be smart.  Read your ingredients lists, and I assure you the world will open up to you.
 

October is Deodorant Month

I first came up with the idea for this blog when I heard a news story weeks ago linking deodorant/antiperspirants to breast cancer.  Deodorant and breast cancer, who would have ever thought?   “What do you expect, Sarah, when you are apply those chemicals to your lymph nodes everyday,” a coworker commented to me one day.  True true.  There are lymph nodes in our armpits I suppose.  But I never thought deodorant could be the culprit of breast cancer.  Oh that lovely “shower clean” scent that has brought me so much confidence since my awkward middle school years.  I remember the first time I ever used deodorant via a trial package given to me in health class in sixth grade.  In the trial package I received a pink Bic razor, a small tube of fresh scent perfume, Candies maybe?, and a small Teen Spirit sample deodorant stick.  I have to admit that I wore that sample stick of Teen Spirit down to its very plastic core.  I was liberated by its sweet shower scent.  By applying Teen Spirit I was applying years, popularity, wisdom.  With every application of Teen Sprit I became cooler, more normal.  Teen Spirit was revolutionary and it took advantage of me at such a very impressionable, vulnerable, and awkward age.  So you can imagine how hard it was to walk away from Teen Spirit, from Degree, the scents of my youthful confidence.  It was terrifying.  And may I remind you that I am also a woman ever-mindful of my scent and ever mindful of the scents of my environment.  Call it Southern hospitality, or call it paranoia, but I always have to have onions cooking or a scented candle burning when the guests come over.  I need my stuff to smell good.  So yes, the transition to a “natural” deodorant was terrifying. 

But terrified as I was, I was being called to change.  The news story was the final piece of convincing evidence.  Months prior, however, I had also learned about the lack of regulation that governs cosmetic industries.  Unlike our food products, which are regulated fairly heavily on account of public safety, cosmetic products are not held to as-stringent standards.  For more information about chemicals in cosmetic products and the lack of regulation that cosmetic industries face, you can visit Annie Leonard’s Story of Stuff Project. The mounting evidence surrounding chemicals in our deodorants and our cosmetic products left with me with no other option than to change.  I am changing for my health, for the health of my fellow sisters and brothers, and for the health of my planet.

My natural deodorant revelation also inspired me to start this blog.  I have hopes that this blog will go beyond talking about deodorant.  I see this blog as a medium through which to talk about all kinds of cosmetic and household cleaning products.  I hope this blog to be a conversation among women and people about ways to make our bodies and our environments healthier, without harmful chemicals. Each month I am inviting one person to write about their experiences switching to a new product that does not contain harmful chemicals.  The month of October is deodorant month, so I am writing about my experiences.  I will also rate the products I’ve tried and allow other women who try the products to do the same.  (Please see the rating system on the sidebar). 

And so I want to challenge you ladies to try natural deodorant. I recommend Nature’s Gate “Spring Fresh” and Lafes deodorant stick.  Together these two are a great combination.  You can put the Lafes on first and then the Nature’s Gate.  The Lafes neutralizes the odor-forming bacteria, and the Nature’s Gate leaves you feeling fresh and clean.  You will forget all about Teen Spirit and embrace the new world of natural deodorant… well hopefully.  I do have to warn you, however, that these are just deodorants, not antiperspirants.  So it will be an adjustment.  The antiperspirant component of many brand name deodorants is what is being linked to breast cancer.  Most antiperspirants on the market contain aluminum oxide the harmful carcinogen culprit. However, if there is a time to try a new deodorant and move away from antiperspirants, fall would be the time.  You have those long sleeves on, so no one will even notice the difference.  And hopefully there will not be much a difference at all - as far as odor goes.  So come along with me and engage in this challenge.  Be changed, be healthy.