Our skin is our biggest organ and absorbs a huge amount of what we put on it topically.
My mother comes from an Italian background and I grew up watching her put olive oil on every everything! On every meal, all over her skin, she even drinks it straight off a dessert spoon before bed.
She is now 61 (2022) and still has great skin, which I'm sure is thanks to genetics but also her natural remedies and habits.
This way of life is definitely influencing me now more than ever.
When I am at home, a lot of what I put on my skin is simply foods I would eat.
This goes for face masks, bathing, moisturising, toning, everything!
When I do use products, I try to buy organic and natural products and when reading the ingredients I make sure I recognise them or research them, so I know what I'm putting onto my skin and in my body.
Unfortunately, this isn't always easy to stick to. We are surrounded by chemicals.
For me, the hardest is makeup, especially on photoshoots where I don't have much control.
Because of this I try not to wear make up when I'm at home or if I don't need to.
So let's discuss these chemicals we are surrounded by.
Some of the most well known and best marketed products we use all the time, that we think are healthy... Actually aren't!
An example of this is a well known product called Bio-Oil.
Bio-Oil is always the first suggestion I hear for when someone wants to heal their skin from scarring, stretch marks, rejuvenating their skin AND using on pregnant bellies.
BUT... Have you actually looked at the ingredients?
Bio-Oil has at least 28 ingredients...
These include-
Calendula Officinalis Flower Extract (Calendula Oil) Lavandula Angustifolia Oil (Lavender Oil) Rosmarinus Officinalis Leaf Oil (Rosemary Oil) Anthemis Nobilis Flower Oil (Chamomile Oil)
Retinyl Palmitate (Vitamin A) Tocopheryl Acetate (Vitamin E)
Paraffinum Liquidum Triisononanoin Cetearyl Ethylhexanoate Isopropyl Myristate Glycine Soja Oil Helianthus Annuus Seed Oil BHT Bisabolol
Fragrance (Rose)
Parfum Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone Amyl Cinnamal Benzyl Salicylate Citronellol Coumarin Eugenol Farnesol Geraniol Hydroxycitronellal Hydroxyisohexyl 3-Cyclohexene Carboxaldehyde Limonene Linalool
Colour CI 26100
When I first read this ingredients list I was shocked but mostly, really sad.
It was a feeling I'd had many times before while studying nutritional medicine, when I was discovering some of the ins and outs about our food and health industry.
You may recognise a few of the above ingredients as plant extracts or two common vitamins.
But unfortunately, a lot of this product is filled with synthetic and processed chemicals.
Ingredients like these have been known to cause serious long term damage to our health including allergies and serious toxicity to our organs, especially our immune and reproductive systems...
And who knows what is really happening when you mix them all these chemicals together creating new chemical compounds.
An important tip to know when buying your products is the word "fragrance" or "Parfum".
Sadly, companies do not have to disclose the list of chemicals they use to make their products' unique "smell".
Bio-Oil is just one example, for all products, research the ingredients yourself and find out the dangers and toxicity levels before slapping some on your skin.
I even found information about one of the above ingredients being restricted in a countries skin care products:- now that is saying something.
SO, what should we use?
There are many organic substances that come from our earth, that will do less harm to your body and heal your skin just as well, if not better.
When healing our skin, we also want to work from the inside too, which is the exact opposite of what some of these well marketed skin products are doing.
There is an amazing app called 'Think Dirty - Shop Clean'.
I was introduced to this app through a workshop I did a few years ago and was blown away to see some of the chemicals used in products I trusted.
This app is a great way to learn about the potentially toxic ingredients in your cosmetics and personal care products. (I do not work for this app, I just like it!)
If you are after a specific skin healing protocol for growing tummies, scars, stretch marks, dermatitis, psoriasis, eczema or something similar...
Please feel free to contact me and I would love to help you as naturally as I can. :)
Happy healing.
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