By Coach Kat, July 17, 2020, copyright Bronwyn Katdaré 2020
Most of my clients are shocked to learn about the toxicity and possible hormonal dangers in common personal hygiene products – everything from toothpaste to deodorant to lotions to hair products to make-up and on and on. In many ways, we are more vulnerable to what we put on our skin than we are to what we put in our mouths! Clients do so much work to be healthy so I don’t want them take a giant step backward by slathering well-absorbed toxic chemicals all over their bodies, especially estrogen-mimicking chemicals, meaning they have hormone-like effects in the body.
Often there is a disconnect between the lifestyle choices clients are making and the life experience they wish to have. We often don’t notice problems in the skin until later in illness progression. Skin is our largest organ and works as temperature control, barrier control, and cushioning. The skin has a microbiome (just like the gut) that we want to make certain not to destroy with excessive exfoliation or washing and the use of anti-bacterial soaps. The skin is semi-permeable; so what we put on it gets absorbed and goes directly into the body. Daily, we slather on not 1 or 2 but dozens of chemical-laden substances onto our skin. The skin is essentially a giant mouth. Never be willing to put anything on your skin that you wouldn’t be willing to eat!!!
Even if you are choosing “clean” or "green" personal hygiene products or beauty products, be warned - much of this is based on marketing. It’s not until you read the ingredients that you learn the partial truth: what I mean is that ingredients that are ingested by the skin are highly unregulated. They are unregulated in what you need to be told is in a product or what things need to be called or named. Substances have been processed into “nanoparticles,” which are so small that that are very easily absorbed. You might think wrinkle cream with nanotechnology is awesome...but not really because it is directly taken up into systemic cells - and this is even before it gets into circulation and works it’s way around inside our bodies to start filtering out the bad stuff.
If you take away nothing else, please remember this: The skin is a giant mouth by which we take in our environment. We use the information from our environment to determine the status of our world, especially beauty and personal hygiene products, as well as cleaning products, the residues of which come into direct contact with our skin. With this information, we are telling our bodies how to behave and how to function. If we feed our bodies junk data from toxins, our bodies try to adapt. When the body cannot adapt and filter our the plethora of toxic substances we expose it to, it gets overwhelmed and these toxins accumulate. Is any antiperspirant, lotion, or hair dye worth illness, disease, or dysfunction of the body and mind?
Please click the link for the Environmental Working Group. On their website, you can find databases for the safety of tap water, cosmetics, sunscreen, insect repellant, the Dirty Dozen and Clean 15 Foods, and a shoppers guide for pesticides in produce, among many other guides.
(Bronwyn Katdaré is a certified plant-based holistic health coach, specializing in intuitive, lifestyle, and functional medicines. She is a Shamanic practitioner, an attuned Reiki II practitioner of the Usui and Karuna traditions, and a facilitator of other energy-healing modalities. Bronwyn is guest faculty with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies and a graduate of the FSS Three Year Program of Advanced Initiations in Shamanism and Shamanic Healing. Bronwyn practices healing modalities with the dogs she trains at Katdaré K9 Coaching. She is also interested in quantum physics, astrophysics, transpersonal psychology, and ecopsychology.).