Time to vent & hope you can prove me wrong with some good recs!
After not knowing what caused my cancer, and after poison dripping into my heart day after day over the course of 5 months, I came out of my chemo treatment swearing that I would be better to my body. One way I set out to do that: I was determined to read the ingredient lists and rotate in more natural products around the house.
Digging into these soaps, cleaners, candles, sunscreen, and makeup is a steep, winding, and OVERWHELMING road though!
Soap seemed like an easy place to start. We all have it. We all need it. It’s often a gift given to patients since newsflash! you have to keep very clean when you are in a war with your white blood cells. It felt like the perfect first focus, and I figured a great natural soap would be figured out by now.
To do the first assessment of what we already owned (I hoped that we could save some $$ and not have to invest in replacements) I used the app Think Dirty. It’s easy and gives a 0-10 rating to beauty and self care products based on their ingredients. From what I can tell, the amount of an ingredient in something doesn’t impact the rating – just the presence of the ingredient. Similar to MyFitnessPal, you can scan a barcode to easily find your product (as long as the product has already been entered) and learn all about it.
Well, a quick sweep of the apartment later and I felt totally defeated. Everything has the “fragrance” label that we’ve been taught is a black box of chemicals and secret sauce recipes that we don’t get insight into. A lot of the ingredients are straight out of a chemistry glossary so I don’t know what they are. Are they natural? Are they risky? Are they ok as long as they’re in small doses? Some of the ingredient lists go on for FOREVER too. None of those factors make me feel warm and fuzzy, and are a checklist that is engrained in my mind every time I go to wash my hands. Do I think a few uses of stuff is an issue? Definitely not. Do I think that we, scientists and governments included, understand the effects of long-term use of the chemicals that are in the products we surround ourselves with? For sure no. It’s especially terrifying when I see the differences in what’s allowed in Europe vs here in the States.
Does this make me some conspiracy theorist? Maybe… especially after watching Chernobyl and imagining how decisions get made and how one thing years ago can trickle into the future… More likely you can just call me a bit paranoid. I don’t trust the vetting of products, pretty much anywhere. Not necessarily because I don’t trust the organizations doing the reviews, but because our bodies are a crazy, adaptable machines that we’re constantly learning about. That means our bodies can do amazing things to protect us. It also means they are easily manipulated – especially over time. I can’t help but wonder if all of the new sicknesses, infertility, allergies, and cancers are because of living longer, better record keeping, more open discussions, improved scientific research, or the new products that we all use. Articles like this mention how new products and chemical combinations are / aren’t tested on or around humans or vetted through testing. And they especially aren’t tested for decades before they are sold on the market – even I get that that sounds unreasonable – so how do we know what the impacts are?
My chemo that saved me is included under this umbrella thinking too. It’s a semi-recent treatment, so truly no one knows long term side effects, but there was no way in hell I was going to reject it when it had been the most successful as of late. What is the tradeoff amongst effectiveness, timeliness, cost, time, and health? Chemicals are also pretty cool things that can prove to be a huge advantage, so where’s the right equilibrium? Is this another situation of “everything in moderation?”
Living with these thoughts is annoying. It can get expensive. I’ve tried some of the cleaner products in the sunscreen category, and they just don’t rub in all the way! Another Survivor on the same natural home campaign as I am gave Dr Bronner’s a try but said it just never really got the job done and there was always oil residue in her sink.
Let’s be clear that I haven’t yet done a full cleanse (ha!) of all ‘dirty’ products from the home – unless they got a red 10 on the Think Dirty app. I am, however, going about testing some suggestions I’ve received along the way as supplies need to be replenished (I don’t want to be wasteful and throw everything we have in the dump – again, another tradeoff to weigh). If I can’t find something then others and I have decided to compromise on the name brand goods, but go for what is unscented, colorless, etc. As much as the labels can be trusted.
I’d love to be proven wrong and hear about any clean products that kick ass! Open to suggestions for other products, and happy to share info/product samples with anyone trying to do the same! Just let me know 😉 I may give Bronner’s a try just to ease my mind before going back to Tide or something… Up next are lotions and beauty products. Must admit I’m terrified because of acne problems I’ve had my whole life! Going to get a handle on soaps first though; I don’t want to overwhelm my bod with new things and not be able to differentiate what helped (or hurt).