How to Green Your Personal Care
Take a look at the ingredients of your shampoos, conditioners, moisturizers, hair gels, lipsticks, mascaras and perfumes., Understand the problems you face when using many everyday commercial personal care products: many beauty products are not well...
Step-by-Step Guide
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Step 1: Take a look at the ingredients of your shampoos
Do you understand the ingredients? It is probable that there are very long words that make very little sense...
If one or more of the below statements about your personal care product is true, then the ‘safety’ of your products is questionable.
All of the chemicals mentioned next (see "Tips" for details) have been linked to health problems and some or all of them are banned in certain countries: shampoo & body wash often contain sodium lauryl sulphate hair products often use a combination of: sodium lauryl sulfate and TEA (triethanolamine, DEA (diethanolamine), or MEA (monoethanolamine) methylparaben appears on many labels, from cosmetics to deodorant and perfume dibutyl phthalate, or DBP, or diethylhexyl phthalate, or DEHP appear on many labels too. -
Step 2: conditioners
“Organic 100% active ingredients” reads a loud label that misleads you into believing that the product is organic, when it is most definitely not. , Organic products should be certified, but if they are not, another good way to assess their validity is to look out for a list of natural ingredients.
True organic personal care products do not contain preservatives – so there should be absolutely no sign of methyl or propylparabens.
It’s up to you – learn to read the label and be careful of products claiming that they’re organic when they are not! , There are concerns about both chemical and mineral blocking sunscreens.
The higher an SPF the more chemicals are involved in its production, and sunscreen encourages a false sense of security – we think we can stay out in the sun longer than is either smart or safe.
See further Understand Your Sunscreen Label.
It’s all a question of balance – stay out of the sun as much as possible, cover up when in the sun.
The average t-shirt has an SPF of 7 and according to an Australian study, and 85% of fabrics have an SPF of 20 or more.
Use organic or natural sunscreen properly but as infrequently as possible. , As already outlined above, the biggest issue with the incredible range of lotions, potions, gels and pastes is the unregulated chemicals that make up their composition.
It is medically recognised that the body absorbs a lot of what goes on our skin.
A sobering thought: the average adult uses 9 personal care products exposing them to 126 chemicals.
Look out for chemicals that are harmful to you (see top 4 chemicals to avoid below) or, rather than scrutinizing every label, go for organic or natural alternatives. , Household essentials – we can’t do without them.
But we can question what goes into them.
Did you know that most commonly used antiperspirants contain aluminum – toxic to the nervous system and a cause of irritation? Consider that antiperspirants block pores and stop the body regulating its temperature naturally.
Toothpaste contains parabens, titanium dioxide (for whitening) and high levels of fluoride – there is growing concern about the level of fluoride we consume from a combination of our drinking water and toothpaste.
We are told that fluoride helps fight tooth decay, but high doses can be poisonous.
It is mandatory for toothpastes in the USA to carry a poison warning (since 1997), if they contain fluoride.
Look for the natural alternatives in health food stores, or make your own, such as baking soda toothpaste. , Hair might be dead (it contains no living tissue), but it’s as absorbent as the skin, and the number of chemicals we put on our heads in the name of beauty is particularly scary – shampoo, conditioner, hair spray, gel, serums, wax, hair dyes etc.
Shampoos and conditioners use petroleum products, whilst hairsprays and gels use formaldehyde, phthalates and synthetic fragrances – time to start reading the label! The hair colour ingredient Toluene-2.5 Diamine (TDA) is known to be highly toxic.
Not only is it dangerous for your health, but it’s harmful to the environment, as is coal tar, which is sometimes also used in anti-dandruff shampoos and preparations.
There are natural hair colours using vegetable-based ingredients such as henna, walnut and chamomile extracts which you can use as alternatives. , You’ll begin to realise that greening your personal care is a long and hard process that is not being helped by numerous cosmetic and personal care product industries bent on protecting profits rather than studying health impacts and providing healthy alternatives.
And the frightening aspect isn’t so much the use of the chemicals, but the cumulative effect, because we use so many different products, and the chemical soup that we wash down the drain every time we shower or clean ourselves.
Be proactive and read your ingredient labels, demand that changes to products be made by writing to companies that manufacture these chemically laden products and ask your local pharmacist to stock safer products from companies that have taken a conscious choice to remove the potentially dangerous chemicals from their products. , You can make many different products at home from nature's products, unprocessed in the main.
For example, visit LifeGuide Hub's Handmade Cosmetics category for many great ideas.
Ionized acidic water from a water ionizer is an eco-friendly multipurpose "beauty water" that you can make for pennies on the gallon by hooking a water ionizer up to your tap and filling a glass amber or cobalt spray bottle with it.
Great as an all-natural toner, hair rinse, mouthwash, deodorant, hand sanitizer, wrinkle reducer, skin softener, and for treating minor skin irritations. -
Step 3: moisturizers
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Step 4: hair gels
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Step 5: lipsticks
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Step 6: mascaras and perfumes.
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Step 7: Understand the problems you face when using many everyday commercial personal care products: many beauty products are not well regulated health and beauty products top advertising breaches (they don’t do what they claim they do) many use varying mixtures of synthetically produced chemicals many of these synthetic chemicals have not been approved by regulation authorities
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Step 8: but find their way into products and onto shelves through loopholes in regulations as much as a third of personal care products contain at least one chemical linked to cancer mineral oil and petroleum are the basic ingredients in many cosmetic products – these have their origins in fossil fuels the meanings of "natural" and "organic" are generally not regulated and can mean whatever the company wants them to mean!
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Step 9: Choose organic products.
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Step 10: Be careful of sunscreen.
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Step 11: Be careful with body lotions
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Step 12: face creams
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Step 13: make-up.
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Step 14: Be aware of the ingredients in your deodorants and toothpastes.
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Step 15: Stay aware with hair care.
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Step 16: Keep learning and researching (see links below).
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Step 17: Make your own personal care products.
Detailed Guide
Do you understand the ingredients? It is probable that there are very long words that make very little sense...
If one or more of the below statements about your personal care product is true, then the ‘safety’ of your products is questionable.
All of the chemicals mentioned next (see "Tips" for details) have been linked to health problems and some or all of them are banned in certain countries: shampoo & body wash often contain sodium lauryl sulphate hair products often use a combination of: sodium lauryl sulfate and TEA (triethanolamine, DEA (diethanolamine), or MEA (monoethanolamine) methylparaben appears on many labels, from cosmetics to deodorant and perfume dibutyl phthalate, or DBP, or diethylhexyl phthalate, or DEHP appear on many labels too.
“Organic 100% active ingredients” reads a loud label that misleads you into believing that the product is organic, when it is most definitely not. , Organic products should be certified, but if they are not, another good way to assess their validity is to look out for a list of natural ingredients.
True organic personal care products do not contain preservatives – so there should be absolutely no sign of methyl or propylparabens.
It’s up to you – learn to read the label and be careful of products claiming that they’re organic when they are not! , There are concerns about both chemical and mineral blocking sunscreens.
The higher an SPF the more chemicals are involved in its production, and sunscreen encourages a false sense of security – we think we can stay out in the sun longer than is either smart or safe.
See further Understand Your Sunscreen Label.
It’s all a question of balance – stay out of the sun as much as possible, cover up when in the sun.
The average t-shirt has an SPF of 7 and according to an Australian study, and 85% of fabrics have an SPF of 20 or more.
Use organic or natural sunscreen properly but as infrequently as possible. , As already outlined above, the biggest issue with the incredible range of lotions, potions, gels and pastes is the unregulated chemicals that make up their composition.
It is medically recognised that the body absorbs a lot of what goes on our skin.
A sobering thought: the average adult uses 9 personal care products exposing them to 126 chemicals.
Look out for chemicals that are harmful to you (see top 4 chemicals to avoid below) or, rather than scrutinizing every label, go for organic or natural alternatives. , Household essentials – we can’t do without them.
But we can question what goes into them.
Did you know that most commonly used antiperspirants contain aluminum – toxic to the nervous system and a cause of irritation? Consider that antiperspirants block pores and stop the body regulating its temperature naturally.
Toothpaste contains parabens, titanium dioxide (for whitening) and high levels of fluoride – there is growing concern about the level of fluoride we consume from a combination of our drinking water and toothpaste.
We are told that fluoride helps fight tooth decay, but high doses can be poisonous.
It is mandatory for toothpastes in the USA to carry a poison warning (since 1997), if they contain fluoride.
Look for the natural alternatives in health food stores, or make your own, such as baking soda toothpaste. , Hair might be dead (it contains no living tissue), but it’s as absorbent as the skin, and the number of chemicals we put on our heads in the name of beauty is particularly scary – shampoo, conditioner, hair spray, gel, serums, wax, hair dyes etc.
Shampoos and conditioners use petroleum products, whilst hairsprays and gels use formaldehyde, phthalates and synthetic fragrances – time to start reading the label! The hair colour ingredient Toluene-2.5 Diamine (TDA) is known to be highly toxic.
Not only is it dangerous for your health, but it’s harmful to the environment, as is coal tar, which is sometimes also used in anti-dandruff shampoos and preparations.
There are natural hair colours using vegetable-based ingredients such as henna, walnut and chamomile extracts which you can use as alternatives. , You’ll begin to realise that greening your personal care is a long and hard process that is not being helped by numerous cosmetic and personal care product industries bent on protecting profits rather than studying health impacts and providing healthy alternatives.
And the frightening aspect isn’t so much the use of the chemicals, but the cumulative effect, because we use so many different products, and the chemical soup that we wash down the drain every time we shower or clean ourselves.
Be proactive and read your ingredient labels, demand that changes to products be made by writing to companies that manufacture these chemically laden products and ask your local pharmacist to stock safer products from companies that have taken a conscious choice to remove the potentially dangerous chemicals from their products. , You can make many different products at home from nature's products, unprocessed in the main.
For example, visit LifeGuide Hub's Handmade Cosmetics category for many great ideas.
Ionized acidic water from a water ionizer is an eco-friendly multipurpose "beauty water" that you can make for pennies on the gallon by hooking a water ionizer up to your tap and filling a glass amber or cobalt spray bottle with it.
Great as an all-natural toner, hair rinse, mouthwash, deodorant, hand sanitizer, wrinkle reducer, skin softener, and for treating minor skin irritations.
About the Author
Carolyn Russell
Writer and educator with a focus on practical DIY projects knowledge.
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