Hello friends! In case you haven't noticed, in the last several years there has been a growing trend and interest in "all natural products". Now when we walk through the aisles of our favorite stores, we can almost certainly find a number of products touting natural ingredients, vegan friendliness, Non-GMO, phthalate free, sulfate free, and many more such claims. Such was not always the case. There seems to be more demand from the public for less chemicals and more natural alternatives - and I agree! We therefore see major corporations taking notice and providing products that appeal to the health crowd and seem to fulfill this need. On the one side, all this looks great on the surface - the claims sound great, the product looks decent; but is it really all that it claims to be? I can't help but be reminded of the 'low fat', 'low sugar' craze of the food industry. Unfortunately, what we really ended up with was the seemingly great food actually loaded with other undesirable ingredients that are just as detrimental to our health. This begs the question, are the commercially produced 'all natural" personal care products really safe? As some of us have learned from the food industry, we cannot trust what the front label says, we must in fact, read the list of ingredients to verify! Many times when I have done this, I've been very disappointed to find out that the very attractively packaged, commercially produced 'all natural' product, actually contains a number of very questionable ingredients. We already deal with an overly excessive amount of chemical exposure in everyday life. While it is true that we can't stop breathing to avoid environmental pollution and other pollutants that are out of our control, we should be doing everything we can to limit the amount of chemicals, contaminants and harmful chemicals that come into our bodies not only in our foods but also through our personal care and beauty products.
A quick look at the ingredients in basic personal care products that many of us use on a daily basis, shampoo, condition, lotion, deodorant and perfume, and you will see not only questionable but outright harmful chemicals that our body should not be absorbing. For the most part, women are vastly more exposed to and being harmed by these toxic chemicals because we usually use many more personal care products as well as beauty products! So what are we to do? Again, I believe we can limit the amount of chemicals coming into our bodies. And my focus here is to speak on handmade personal care products, which can be truly free from toxic, harmful chemicals found in commercially produced products. Thanks to several health documentaries on streaming services such as Netflix, the beauty and cosmetics industries have been exposed as to their use of said chemicals in their products. That is what seems to have caused a greater awareness and therefore a demand for more natural products. Like I stated before, major companies have taken notice since the demand has increased.
We know that most commercially produced body and face soap in supermarkets today is not real soap, it is a detergent. This is fact. I can't tell you how disturbed I was when I realized this. Without getting into too much detail, let me just say, this is why my company name includes the words Real Soap. In my store you will always find that I am committed to quality, natural ingredients and I avoid at all costs all harmful and toxic chemicals. It is with artisans such as myself that you will truly find a desire to provide high quality, natural, good for you products and transparency in ingredients.
I'd like to offer a wonderful tool where you can check out your favorite personal care product at the EWG's website and see what's really in it. https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/browse/ewg_verified/
Thank you for being interested in your health and for giving me the opportunity to share from my heart!