Those of you who have seen me around the net and know me a bit are well familiar with my stance on the toxins we’re being exposed to everyday. It’s hard – make that impossible – to avoid all of them but we can do a lot to limit our exposure to them.
My research has always turned up statistics that claim most of us are exposed to about 175 chemicals every day. I’m in the mind that these estimates are just way whacked out low. Between chemicals in our air, water, food, soil, clothes, bedding, carpets, furniture, cleaning products, makeup, shampoos, soaps, housing structures, manufactured products, and so on, I’m thinking we have become not much more than chemical sponges. It’s no wonder that whoever isn’t dying of cancer is dying of coronary issues or diabetes, and if those three aren’t killing someone, something else besides good ole father time is usually at work – even if it’s just the chemicals the pharms are feeding someone for insane reasons that they create to keep people eating their chemicals.
There is really only one defense in a chemical laden environment and that is to learn exactly what chemicals are out there and where they hide. Then you find ways to avoid them. When house cleaners became toxic nightmares, there was nothing to stop us from using salt, baking soda, and vinegar to clean with. They work just as well and are actually cheaper – so why the rush to buy all the poisonous ones? Mostly it resulted from people just trusting that government agencies like the FDA would protect us from the corporations that line their pockets. Oops. Well, that didn’t work for us.
There are a few organizations, though, that actually recognize that chemicals cause diseases. They are not afraid to talk about it and are not afraid to point out where they are and what they can do to us. Of course, it takes citizens to unite against anything they find out to get chemicals banned, but we can’t do that until we know what is out there.
That’s why I’m putting this link up for all of you. The Center on Disease Control has made a list of chemicals that are out there, where they are and what they do. It took them well over 500 pages to list them. 500 pages. You still think you’re exposed to less than 200 chemicals every day? Anyway — the link I’ve posted below takes you straight to that report, so put on your reading glasses, click that link, and prepare to be absolutely amazed and scared crapless. Serious – you couldn’t think of fiction this frightening.
From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport/pdf/FourthReport.pdf
Go download your copy of this free report today and find out what you might want to be missing.
After I published my articles about soap, I received a question/comment about soap stripping the skin of natural oils. I thought this was an important issue, so here’s my answer to that one.
Will Soap Dry Your Skin Out?
There seems to be some information floating around about the danger of soap drying out skin. The issue can be a confusing one because of all the propaganda that the skin and hair care product industries have distributed in their attempts to sell their products. Unfortunately, much of the information out about soap drying out skin is not real helpful to those who want to keep youthful skin or returned damage skin to health. A quick look at the issues involved with soap use should clear up your skin questions pretty quickly.
Our bodies produce and coat our skin with natural oils. These oils are important in the functioning of our skin cells, but it can cause a few problems for skin health, too. This fact is more important to understand today than ever before. At one time our earth was natural and pure. Today we are exposed daily to over 6,000 toxins in our food, air, water, and living environments. Today we are seeing increases of bacterias and viruses which continue to become more dangerous as they become more immune to our efforts to kill them. As these elements keep hammering our skin to gain entry to our bodies, our skin’s health becomes more and more important to, and more difficult to, maintain and optimize.
Just as oils in our cupboards become rancid, so will the oils on your skin due to exposure to harmful elements. While the oil on our skin is vital to our health, it also makes a great adhesive for environmental toxins and germs. Many toxins do not merely adhere to skin, they actually soak into the body from it and thus gain entry without being filtered through our liver and other detoxifying organs. Toxins that gain entry to the body via skin are therefore much more toxic than those we ingest through our food and water. Germs also adhere to skin oils and multiply, some finding entrance through areas in which the skin integrity is compromised and through our pores. As long as oil which has collected these elements stays on the skin, your body is in a very compromised state. Skin oil needs to be washed off frequently to get rid of the collection of these toxins.
It is also, at this point, important to understand the purpose of soap. The purpose of soap is not to moisturize. It is to clean. A good soap made without toxins will do just that. Anti-bacterial ingredients are not necessary, and actually are poisonous and can cause much havoc to your liver and other vital organs. You do not need anti-bacterial agents. Soap should merely be a tool to help wash away oils contaminated with toxins and bacteria. Choose your soap very carefully and make sure you know what every ingredient in the soap does and make sure it has no toxic chemicals. Wash your skin with a wash cloth, soap and water. Once you are done, you need to moisturize and you need to do that without fail.
Do not fail to realize that skin needs moisture to stay supple, too. Moisture and oil must not be confused. Right after washing you skin will feel and look just a little plumper from the water used to wash. That water will evaporate rapidly though, leaving skin dry and tight. By adding a layer of moisturizer right away after washing, you can avoid that dryness. If you have dry skin, you may want to use a bit of oil after washing, but it is best to let the skin breathe naturally and replace the oils from your own metabolic process. If your skin is dry, that is a signal that you need to fix what is wrong with your metabolism. If your metabolism is running smoothly your body will replace the oils you washed off fairly quickly. Eating enough of the essential oils for your body goes a long way to maintaining the correct flow of oil to coat your cells. Omega 3 oils from krill oil and raw, ground flax seeds will provide vital oils for your body to use to replace skin oils.
Another issue with washing skin is that it takes time for your skin to metabolize Vitamin D3 you get from sun exposure. If you know you can get more sun exposure daily to keep a layer of this vital vitamin/hormone on your skin, washing will not set you back on your supply. If you know you are going to be unable to replace that layer daily, you might have to choose between hearty washing and just a light wash with plain water for a day or so until you can get more sun exposure so as to get rid of as many toxins as you can without disturbing your Skin’s vitamin D resources. If you have been exposed to a lot of toxins, you might well decide to wash heartily and take a Vitamin D3 supplement that day. Make sure you study the facts about your needs for this vitamin and how to take it for maximum absorption. Skin without enough Vitamin D will not stay healthy very long – and neither will any other part of your body.
Natural skin oil is vital to good skin, but once those oils become polluted, they do nothing more than harm your body. Washing your skin with non-toxic soap is a very important part of any skin care regime. It’s not a non-toxic soap that hurts your skin, it is not continuing with a good after wash care regime that will cause any negative long-term effects that you would see from washing alone.
©2010; Sally Taylor: Sals Secrets Revealed
Reading through the vast amounts of literature available about makeup, now and again you will find an article surfacing denouncing makeup as being bad for your skin. The reasons vary from chemicals to clogging pores. While the reasons to “go natural” seem to make sense, many struggle between the idea of health and what they see in the mirror in the au natural state. If you are one of those who struggle between appearance and health, you can relax a bit. Using makeup doesn’t need to be a one way road to self destruction.
The first notorious reason given for not wearing makeup is that many are loaded with ingredients which are not healthy. Many are, but there are also many which are now made with only safe ingredients. The best of these are those which are not tested on animals. Think about that. If a product is being tested on animals, you automatically have a red light. If ingredients are safe in the first place, there is no need to torture our fellow creatures to make sure that it will not harm us. While I strongly advocate these makeups because of my devotion to animal rights issues, it just makes sense to use products that are known to be harmless in the first place. Why would anyone want to take risks like that? Always use products that don’t need testing on animal to determine their safety.
Of course, the safety of the product isn’t the only health issue people see connected to wearing makeup. Makeup covers skin cells and gets into the pores making it hard for skin to breath. There is no getting around that one, however, there are actually times that the coat of makeup on your skin can have some benefit. If you are going into areas such as large cities where the air is polluted, your skin is going to get a coating of pollution. You can check that fact by washing your skin well before going into the city. As soon as you get home soak a washcloth with some hydrogen peroxide and wipe your face and neck with it. Look at the color of the dirt coming off your skin. Dirt is not soot black, it is brown. It’s a safe bet, however, that the residue on your washcloth is soot black.
The black residue on your washcloth is the soot from the city air and is loaded with toxins. These toxins coat your skin and clog your pores just as a coat of makeup will do, but unlike well chosen makeup, they can damage your skin and body. While it is your skin’s job to protect you from these toxins, it is far from a bad idea to protect your skin from them. Putting a coat of makeup over the skin will provide a layer of protection for your cells and keep the toxins out of your pores. Eventually these toxins will leak through, but the makeup buys you some time and protection until you can wash them off. It is still a good idea to clean your skin and pores thoroughly as soon as possible.
If you are going out to areas which are not extensively polluted, it is still a good idea to go without makeup and let your skin get some fresh air and sunlight. By that I don’t mean you should slather your skin with sunblock. Some sunblocks will clog pores just as handily as pollution and makeup, but sunblock is not good for your skin at any level whether it just sits on your skin or absorbs into it. Many sunblocks have ingredients which are much more harmful than any ingredients in makeups. Not only are you dowsing your skin with carcinogenic toxins when you use them, you are also inhibiting your body’s ability to produce Vitamin D. This vitamin is vital not only to healthy skin, but lack of it has been found to be a culprit in the development of eleven different cancers and scads of other diseases and ailments. Sunblock also goes an extra measure to hinder the body’s natural production of melatonin which can cause a whole new array of health nightmares for you. So what do you do if your skin is sensitive to burning?
Take a good makeup foundation with you when you go out. For outdoors recreational use you will want to choose a foundation that has zinc oxide in it. If you can’t find one, you can make your own sun block by mixing your foundation with zinc oxide. Making your own sunblock in this method will allow you to avoid damage from sun without having the painted clown face that zinc oxide on its own can produce. That’s probably not the look you want to achieve on a date to go hiking.
Let your skin get some sunlight so your body can produce Vitamin D and melatonin. You will want at least a half hour of natural sunlight before you put anything on it to protect it from burning. Give your skin as much time to breath naturally as possible before applying the foundation to it but never let your skin burn. Burning causes major skin damage no matter what else you are doing or are not doing to protect it. Make sure you put a good coat of foundation over any areas of skin that are exposed and likely to burn. If you find that the foundation you are using doesn’t work well, you might want to find another that does a better job for you.
There are times that it is better to go without makeup and let your skin breath naturally. Even world class models do not “paint up” on a full time schedule. Sometimes just a coat of mascara can enhance your appearance enough that you can feel comfortable not wearing a coat of foundation for just quick trips out of the house or visits with friends. A quick analysis of the environments you will be going into will give you an idea of whether it is better to go natural or with a layer of makeup on your face. It is a wise idea to spend some time every day without any, but if you have chosen your products well and are diligent about cleaning them off and giving your skin time to breath there is no reason why you can’t “paint the barn if it needs painting”.
2007-2008 © Sals Secrets Revealed
Your skin is bombarded by toxins every day. Toxins from the air and elements that come in contact with your skin soak into your pores where they clog your body’s ability to breath naturally. Some toxins can be readily absorbed by the cells where they can reap excessive amounts of damage. Removing these toxins is of extreme importance to not only your appearance, but your overall health as well. While washing is necessary to get rid of these toxins, normal bathing isn’t always enough to completely clean the skin.
Most water now contains a host of toxins itself. While you may wash away dirty toxins you picked up in a city with highly polluted air, you will sometimes just be exchanging these air pollution toxins for water pollution toxins. When you bath or shower, your body absorbs the water and any toxins that are in that water. These toxins will range depending on the quality of your water system but can include high poisons such as fluoride and chlorine which the government dumps indiscriminately into our water supply. Many bacterias and fungi are present in water supplies as are toxins from electricity production, industry, warfare, pesticides, and even a host of pharmaceutical drugs!
Needless to say, a normal bath doesn’t go far to counteract the effects of a day’s coating of toxins, but rather just changes some of them for others. To get a bath that is truly a cleaning experience, you might have to buy a filter for your home. There are many filters on the market that make some nice sounding claims, but to get the real poisons out of your water you need a filter that works by reverse osmosis. These filters reverse the process by which many of these toxins are dissolved into the water. That they are actually dissolved in the water is why just a filter won’t remove them. Reverse osmosis will remove 99% of the harmful elements from your water supply.
If you cannot immediately afford a reverse osmosis filter, you can buy gallons of either water cleaned by reverse osmosis or distilled water. If you like deep luxurious baths, buying gallons of water might prove a bit expensive, but it is a well placed investment in both the appearance of your skin and your overall health. Once you have enough pure water for a detox bath, you will want to, and need to, boil some of the water to bring the bath to the temperature you desire. Boiling will not only heat water, it creates a process which allows water to crystallize as pure healthy water is supposed to do. Your DNA receptors will thank you heartily for exposing your skin to such wonderful water.
Add a teaspoon or two of ginger and a quarter cup of baking soda to your bath water. The ginger will open your pores and clean them. The baking soda will also give a cleaning boost to clogged pores and abused skin. If you suffer from rashes or other skin ailments a quarter cup of oatmeal flour is a soothing remedy for skin aggravations. Putting a bag each of chamomile and black or green tea in some of the water you are boiling and adding to bath water also provides soothing remedy for skin ailments and a boost for detoxifying the surface of your body.
You will not feel like the same person after one of these truly detoxifying baths. The more often you can provide yourself with pure water detox baths, the more you will see a change in your general appearance. This change will also be a signal that you are improving your total body health. After all, the first element in attractive beauty is healthy skin.
2007-2008 © Sals Secrets Revealed
Dehydration is one powerful skin wrinkler. People that understand how aged that dehydrated skin looks often take recourse by drinking at least 8 glasses of water per day. It is a shame they don’t take as much thought in checking to make sure the water they drink is not fluoridated. Even small amounts of industrial (sodium, silica) fluoride will quickly ruin every effort a person makes to keep their skin looking young and smooth.
While low levels of natural (calcium, magnesium) fluoride can be ingested with no real notice, industrial (sodium, silica) fluoride is what is being dumped into our water. This form of fluoride, even in very small concentrations, is poisonous and damages your body’s collagen system. Collagen is a protein that is produced in specified cells. Some cells produce collagen which forms fibers that give structural support to the skin, tendons, ligaments, and muscles. Some cells will produce collagen that is mineralized and, along with calcium, builds bone and tooth enamel. Fluoride in amounts as minute as 1 part per million disrupts the sythesis of collagen and induces mutation. The cell will then try to compensate by producing more collagen, but because the collagen is imperfect it does not function as intended.
As the body loses it’s ability to control the production of collagen, it also loses the ability to determine which collagen should be mineralized and which shouldn’t. This loss will result in the mineralization of skin, muscle, and other tissues that should be fibrous. Wrinkles are the result. Bone and tooth collagen which should be mineralized often is not and so subsequent bone and tooth malformation and loss sets in as well.
It is highly important, not only to youthful health, but to the maintenance a youthful appearance to avoid ingesting fluoride. In light of current scientific findings about fluoride much acitivism is now going on attempting to halt the fluoridation of water. While many towns and cities are ceasing the practice, there are still many more which are fluoridating water than not. Your local water provider will tell you the amount of fluoride they are dumping into your tap water. Some well water will also contain fluoride from natural rock sources. Have your water tested even if you are not using city water sources. It takes only 1 part per million to cause damage. If your water contains a lesser amount, do not be fooled into thinking that it is safe.
There are many other sources of fluoride in our diets other than water. Because the effects are bio-cumalative, it is important to restrict the amount of fluoride you are getting from all sources. Sources that contribute in major ways to your fluoride intake include toothpaste, teas (with instant and decaffeinated teas being extremely high), mechanically boned chicken, soda pop, ready to drink fruit juices, wine, beer, Teflon pans, salt (in some countries), processed cereals, and grains. Fluoride pesticides are also presently widely used and it is important to wash your fruits, vegetables, and grains before eating them.
If you have fluoride in your water, you need to get special filters to get rid of it. Not all filters will get rid of fluoride. When you buy a filter, make sure it specifically removes fluoride. Reverse osmosis systems are the best for fluoride removal, and a whole house system should be considered. Remember that you bathe in your water too, and skin is absorbant. Eat as naturally as possible, but wash your vegetables and fruits well before eating them. Avoid processed foods that contain high levels of fluoride. Remember that fluoride will accumilate over time and the best way to control a dangerous build up is to not ingest it in the first place.
While you can’t keep fluoride out of your diet completely, if you value radiant, youthful skin, and your whole body health as well, it is vitally important that you limit your fluoride exposure as much as possible. With DOW Chemicals putting increasing pressure on the EPA and FDA to allow increased intensity in fluoride pesticides you may even consider joining a local or online fluoride activitist group to help in the fight against fluoridated water and pesticides.
By keeping control of the amount of fluoride you ingest, you will find your efforts to keep your skin supple and smooth will become much, much easier and your overall health will improve greatly.
2007-2008 © Sals Secrets Revealed
