Today I've been looking at the issue of figuring out what products in my bathroom and makeup drawer I should maybe consider ditching. This article, called Making Makeup Green, from the Queen of Green blog on the David Suzuki Foundation website was part of my inspiration (see sidebar for a link to the blog):
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/queen-of-green/2013/09/-making-makeup-green/
I've wondered about this for a long time but until recently, stayed attached enough to mainstream ideas of beauty and grooming that I wasn't ready to toss this stuff out. Now, I feel pretty comfortable not wearing nail polish, and I've never worn a lot of makeup but hanging on to my collection of cosmetics that I only sometimes use so that I can 'look right' when I go out seems less important. I'm more concerned now with using products that are actually healthy for me, not just ones that claim all kinds of great results or give me solutions to beauty problems I didn't know I had. It's amazing how easily I can be sucked in to marketing that leads me to believe I need all of these special face washes, toners, and moisturizers to look like a beautiful, glowing, on-top-of-things young woman. After doing some basic research, I know that these products generally don't do what we want them to do. Some of them are made to address issues that are imagined by marketing departments to keep us brand-loyal. And more importantly, almost all of them contain ingredients that are associated with health problems and environmental degradation. Because don't forget, after we preen and primp and beautify ourselves, the products we use get washed down the drain and make their way into ecosystems full of critters who don't care if we smell like a 'mountain breeze' (which doesn't actually smell anything like my deoderant - and why should my armpits smell like alpine territory anyway?). Seems like I'm spending a lot of money accumulating products that I don't need and that don't support my values of respecting my environment and the life in it that I impact so easily.
Much of this isn't news to you, I'm sure.
So moving right along - I'm finding my skepticism useful in this arena. Strip your ideas about grooming, beauty and hygiene down to basics. Way down. Clean your skin and moisturize it. Clean your hair. That's it really. So what's so special about the plethora of shampoos and body washes we commonly see in the store? What goes in them that is beneficial, effective, and so exclusive that each brand has its own version of what you need? How do all the synthetic ingredients and compounds in these products affect my health, and when they go down the drain, the health of the other species they come in contact with?
Wondering about all this, I got hooked on an app for my iPhone called Think Dirty. It's free, and it gives you a way to help determine if your beauty products are healthy/safe/clean. Basically, how it works is you can either search a product or scan the barcode to pull up information on the health risks of the ingredients. Most of us don't know what the ingredients are in our shampoos, conditioners, moisturizers and makeup (regardless of the fact that they're listed on the bottle). It's not perfect - it would be impossible to be - it doesn't have every ingredient rated and depending on what country you're in, the barcode scan may or may not work. However, it is very useful for learning which ingredients to avoid, and outlines them based on the types of health impacts they're known to have. For instance, it groups and rates types of ingredients in terms of carcinogenicity, developmental and reproductive toxicity, and allergies and immunotoxicities. It gives you a basic rating from 0-10, 10 being the worst rating for negative impacts.
You can find the app here (or search for it in app store):
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/think-dirty/id687176839?mt=8
For a little extra help deciphering what's in your shampoo, shaving cream, eye shadow or make up remover, check out the Cosmetics Cop, Paula Begoun:
http://www.paulaschoice.com/who-we-are/
She has her own product line to offer you alternatives for all the horrible, creepy ingredients you're learning is in the stuff in your bathroom, but there are other products out there, too, that are just as good, maybe better (depending what your preferences are), etc. The main thing is to know what's in the products you're buying and determine what's healthy to put on your body, have in your house, and going down your drain.
After all that pondering and pontificating, this is what I gathered from my own bathroom and makeup drawer to toss out:
I've culled some products in the last year in an effort to de-clutter, but this is for sure the biggest cull (there's more nail polish and makeup in the bag). Today I got rid of the majority of products in my bathroom with the intention of finding the essential things I need from brands with healthier formulas - natural ingredients with names I can't pronounce but only because they're the Latin names of plants, not synthetic compounds made in a lab that might leave my future baby short a gonad. And I can tell you that having my drawer go from crammed to spacious is a really nice feeling. SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE! It's just your bathroom routine, but in a way it's also symbolic of your larger routine in life, too. Shedding those preconceived notions of marketed need, feeling smart about what you need and indulge in, and making space in your mental and physical space for more important things all feel good.
