Skin Care Product Ingredients to Avoid

Your skin is much more than an outer surface to cover bones and muscles--it's the largest organ of your body. Your skin protects your internal organs from injury; helps detoxify wastes through perspiration; is an important line of immune defense against infections--a barrier to viruses and bacteria; protects you against extreme changes in temperature, through its thermoregulatory effect of controlling heat flow between you and your environment; produces and stores vitamin D (important to your immune system); rich in receptors to allow you to sense conditions around you like hard/soft and hot/cold and send information to your brain so you can react to it for self-preservation; protects your body from sunburns and dehydration.

There are many ingredients in personal care products that are harmful to the body. When you put those products on your skin, it will absorb those ingredients. Those harmful ingredients are:

Mineral Oil, Paraffin, and Petrolatum: Petroleum products that coat the skin like plastic, clogging pores and creating a build-up of toxins, which in turn accumulate and can lead to dermatologic issues. Slows cellular development, which can cause you to show earlier signs of aging. Suspected cause of cancer. Disruptive of hormonal activity.

Parabens: Widely used as preservatives in the cosmetic industry (including moisturizers). An estimated 13,200 cosmetic and skin care products contain parabens. Studies implicate their connection with cancer. They have hormone-disrupting qualities (mimicking estrogen) and interfere with the body's endocrine system.

Phenol carbolic acid: Found in many lotions and skin creams. Can cause circulatory collapse, paralysis, convulsions, coma and even death from respiratory failure.

Propylene glycol:Used as a moisturizer in cosmetics and as a carrier in fragrance oils. Shown to cause dermatitis, kidney or liver abnormalities, and may inhibit skin cell growth or cause skin irritation.

Acrylamide: Found in many hand and face creams. Linked to mammary tumors in lab research.

Sodium laurel or lauryl sulfate (SLS), also known as sodium laureth sulfate (SLES): Found in car washes, engine degreasers, garage floor cleaners... and in over 90% of personal care products! SLS breaks down the skin's moisture barrier, easily penetrates the skin, and allows other chemicals to easily penetrate. Combined with other chemicals, SLS becomes a "nitrosamine", a potent class of carcinogen. It can also cause hair loss. SLES is sometimes disguised with the labeling "comes from coconut" or "coconut-derived."

Toluene: Poison! Danger! Harmful or fatal if swallowed! Harmful if inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Made from petroleum or coal tar, and found in most synthetic fragrances. Chronic exposure linked to anemia, lowered blood cell count, liver or kidney damage, and may affect a developing fetus. Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) contains toluene. Other names may include benzoic and benzyl.

Dioxane: Found in compounds known as PEG, Polysorbates, Laureth, ethoxylated alcohols. Common in a wide range of personal care products. The compounds are usually contaminated with high concentrations of highly volatile 1,4-dioxane, easily absorbed through the skin. Dioxane's carcinogenicity was first reported in 1965 and later confirmed in studies including one from the National Cancer Institute in 1978. Nasal passages and liver are the most vulnerable. Dioxane is easily removed during the manufacturing process by "vacuum stripping." Warning: It is a synthetic derivative of coconut. Watch for hidden language on labels, such as "comes from coconut."