How Can You Lower Your Chemical Body Burden?

Picture by Athena Publishing

Hey Everyone,
We see from my last blog post that I am exposed to a whopping 179 chemicals on an average day.  My innocent sounding lip-gloss has a total of 35 possible ingredients, most of which I am probably eating off my lips!  If I add in my shampoo and leave-in conditioner it goes to over 220 chemicals per day!  I'm not subtracting duplicate chemicals.  So, how can I lower my chemical body burden?

• By using less PCPs
• By using PCPs with less chemicals in them
• By using products with more plant-based ingredients

Did any of you try the “Cosmetics Challenge?”  What did you come up with?  Write me and tell us.  Let’s do our own survey.  Did you see how hard it is to count the chemicals in the products you use?  The print is microscopic; if it’s on the container at all.  Sometimes it’s on the box (which I throw away).  Sometimes they don’t tell you; they just say "fragrance," which can be anything.  This is one of the problems with cosmetics; you don’t necessarily know what you are getting.  Artificial fragrances can contain phthalates, which are bad. (We’ll go into that more in a later post). 

Hope to hear from you!
- Michele