Toxic Beauty

by Angie Szczepanik May 14, 2021

If you are familiar with the number of toxic chemicals that are allowed to make their way into our body and household products, and the findings behind certain ingredients, then you would have a fair understanding of ingredients to avoid. It is quite a lengthy list and nobody is expected to remember them all.

Every day we are exposed to hundreds of toxic man-made chemicals whether it be through pollutants (lead, mercury, dioxins), plastics, pesticides, household items like non-stick pans and cleaning products — and of course body products and makeup.

If a product has an eye-catching list of what's NOT inside the bottle, but no ingredients list, that's an instant red flag to put it down. Labelling laws on our cleaning products are incredibly poor and companies are not required to disclose what goes into them.

Just because a product contains the word “natural” on the packaging, it really doesn’t mean that all ingredients contained in the bottle are naturally derived. Labelling laws allow use of the word “natural” if there are SOME natural ingredients included in their formulations. The term “natural” is simply unregulated! So. Very. Misleading.

Over the years, chemicals thought to be harmless have been proven otherwise once the facts have come in. Unfortunately this is often too little, too late for some people. For example, only 25% of the 82,000 chemicals used in the U.S. have ever been tested for toxicity. And, we begin collecting our own cocktail of chemicals from conception.

Some are known to cause respiratory problems, chronic skin conditions, hormone disruption, headaches and dizziness and some are even proven carcinogens. And yet, they are still in use in our everyday products.

Armed with some amazing tools available at our fingertips, pretty quickly you will know where to shop and the difference between clean brands and seemingly-clean brands.

If you aren’t sure where to start, take a look at these wonderful resources which can help you identify the good from the bad ingredients in your household and body products. These are the only apps I need when it comes to making healthy choices about the products I use.

Think Dirty

EWG Skin Deep

The Chemical Maze

Depending on the origin of the app or website you use (and where you live), these may or may not be available. Regardless of which apps you like using, you NEED to enter the ingredients one by one. This is due to the paid partnership that some of these apps hold with certain brands and the results, and even the order in which they are displayed, can be brand-driven. Entering ingredients one by one is totally worth it as it gives you an accurate and unbiased result that you can apply to multiple products. You owe it to yourself to educate yourself on the toxicity of your everyday products.

There are plenty of natural, toxin-free alternatives out there, you just need to know where to look and which brands to trust. I cleaned out toxic products from my home approximately 5 years ago and replaced them with either homemade products using my wonderful doTERRA oils, or trusted brands. As a result, I was able to drop the asthma preventatives I was on for over 15 years, and my family suffered less eczema, tiredness and allergies.

If you need guidance, please contact me to help you rid your home of nasty chemicals.

And, if you are yet to watch the award-winning documentary Toxic Beauty, do yourself a favour and delve into this eye-opening investigation of unregulated chemicals in our everyday products.

Image: Toxic Beauty Documentary