Organic Skin Care
The Answer To
"Natural And Organic" Impostors

If you are not using organic skin care products you are most likely exposing your body to a multitude of toxic chemicals. What we eat or drink is "filtered" to some degree during the digestive process. Quite the opposite is true of what we use on the outside of our bodies.

The human body metabolizes, what it absorbs through the skin, directly into the blood stream. In other words, put chemicals on your skin, you get chemicals in your blood, along with whatever side effects they will create with repeated usage.

If you're not using certified organic skin care products you are feeding your skin chemicals, some of which will be stored in your body tissue, most of them for many months, if not for the rest of your life.

If you have been using conventional cosmetics, skin care and personal care products, you have a body burden of toxic chemicals. There are no buts, what ifs or maybes about it, you have a body burden of toxins. Some will have more than others and, without doing some VERY expensive blood tests, there's no way to know how significant it is.

It's a given that we cannot totally eliminate all of our exposures to chemicals. That being said, everyone can eliminate many of these chemicals by switching to organic body care and organic skin care products.

Yes that everyone includes men. Although we will be talking mostly to our lady visitors, men are at risk just as much as the ladies are.

Once you have begun to eliminate the sources you give your body a chance to start healing itself.

Something we recommend that everyone should consider doing at this point, especially if you plan to become pregnant, is a body cleanse of some type. This will help your body greatly in ridding itself of toxins. Talk with your health care provider about this.

So the bottom line is, look for one of the certified organic seals on your body care and skin care products.

Skin Care Hazards In The News

It should come as no surprise that there are companies which will try to "cheat" their way into the organic skin care products revolution. There has been a considerable amount of attention in the media recently on some of these companies.

Here are a just couple of recent news headlines.

Over 900 Sunscreens Tested
4 Out Of 5 Contain Toxic Chemicals

Cancer Causing 1,4-Dioxane Found In
"Natural And Organic" Skin Care Products

The State of California filed a lawsuit in May 2008 against Avalon Natural Products, makers of Alba, Un-petroleum and Avalon Organics, Beaumont Products which makes Veggie Wash, Clearly Natural brands, Nutribiotic, makers of grapefruit seed extract personal care products, and Whole Food Market of California, Inc., which sells the 365 brand products.

The lawsuit was filed because these companies either manufacture or distribute body care and household cleaning products that have tested positive for the cancer causing chemical 1,4-dioxane.

This probably wouldn't be 'news' expect for that fact that these products are touted as being organic and or natural. That should mean that they are safe for human use. Right?

Forbes Magazine reported on May 1, 2008 that another lawsuit was filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco accusing four companies, Kiss My Face, Stella McCartney America, Estee Lauder and Hain Celestial Group. The lawsuit accuses the companies of advertising that their products are organic, when in fact they are not.

The Environmental Working Group reported that a new 2008 investigation of 952 name brand sunscreens found that 4 out of 5 products present significant safety concerns. The market leading brands of Coppertone, Banana Boat and Neutrogena were the worst offenders with only 1 of their 144 products passing the safety tests.

These reports are only "the tip of the iceberg" so to speak. We are constantly being exposed to toxic chemicals from almost every thing we eat, drink, wear, wash with and apply to our skin. The average woman uses 12 personal care products each day, exposing herself to 168 different chemicals.

This information alone should be enough to prompt any reasonable person to search out organic skin care products to protect themselves and, if they have a family, their family from unnecessary exposures to toxic chemicals.

Toxic Chemicals in
Organic Skin Care Products?

Yes it's true, there are companies that use the words organic or natural in their product name because they consider water to be organic or they contain 1 or 2 organic ingredients. Organic certification does not allow water or salt to be included as part of the certified ingredients.

The majority of products which contain 1 or 2 organic ingredients still contain other toxic chemical ingredients. They think this should allow them to use the word organic or natural on their label. The inclusion of one or two organic ingredients does not make them organic and it certainly doesn't make them safe to use.

This is why the vast majority of so called "natural" or "organic" skin care products DO NOT display any of the organic seals. They simply cannot pass the requirements to be certified organic.

There are no regulations to control them except for meeting the very specific standards to display one of the certified organic seals.

Many companies, in an effort to get in on the organic movement, will use very carefully worded statements to describe their products as natural or organic. In doing this they hedge around the fact that their products also contain toxic chemical ingredients.

If a product does not display one of the certified organic seals then check the ingredients very carefully. A vast majority of products on the market which use one form or another of the words "organic" or "natural" on their label contain toxic chemicals.

It should be pointed out however that there are a few organic skin care products which cannot be certified. Some skin care products contain more than 5% of safe natural ingredients, which cannot be organic because they are not from plants, combined with certified organic ingredients. If a product contains less than 95% certified organic ingredients they cannot be certified.

There are many labels on products with graphics that resemble an official organic seal. You will also see some which tout some official sounding certification. Don't be fooled by these underhanded tactics. Look for one of the official organic seals.

There is a very small percentage of skin care companies world wide that produce truly organic skin care products.


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