Friday, November 28, 2008

Which are better, Chemical Based or Organic Skin Care Products?

By Jemma Rivera

When you expose your skin to chemicals, you are unnecessarily 'playing with fire'. Many workers in the construction business found that when they handled lumber that had been treated their livers became damaged. No, they did not eat the wood, they merely touched it! This lumber was treated with arsenic and when they repeatedly touched and handled the wood it played havoc with their bodies. The largest organ of the human body is the skin. Now that we realize this, we must put this question to ourselves - "Are we safe when we repeatedly use chemical based skin care products?"

Eye makeup has mercury added to it at a rate of up to 65 parts per million. Repeatedly we hear on TV that there is mercury in canned fish and pregnant women should limit their intake of fish. However no one ever mentions anything about the effect that mercury in eye makeup may have. This deadly metal is absorbed easily through the skin and accumulates in the body.

You should steer clear of bronopol. This ingredient is found in mascara. When it was tested on lab animals, it was found to bring about blindness and even death. It will take a very high concentration of bronopol to bring on these side effects, but think about the woman who uses the same brand of mascara for years.

Preservatives in many different lotions and hair care products release formaldehyde. Ingredients like imidazolidinyl urea and DMDM hydantoin can irritate the respiratory system, cause skin reactions, asthma, allergies and sometimes trigger heart palpitations.

Exposure to formaldehyde can have various side effects such as headaches, immune dysfunction, chest pain, dizziness and even cancer. Be on your guard against trade names that include formid, aminoform and uritone. You should also be concerned about others, but this is a beginning.

Coal tar derivatives are also absorbed through the skin. Ingredients like 1-Naphthol and 2- Naphthol are included in this group. If taken orally an amount as small as 2 teaspoons is fatal.

Ingredients such as Vitamin E and C are usually added to make up in order to block the toxic effects of nitrosamines which can come in the forms of, monethanolamine (MEA), lauryl sarcosine, laureth sulphate and cocoyl sarcosine. Before purchasing makeup that promotes the addition of these vitamins, please read the rest of the ingredients. The job that these vitamins have may well not be in providing something extra but in blocking the effects of carcinogenic substances that the products contain.

Often makeup contains ingredients that act as oil emulsifiers, moisture retainers and solvents. These same ingredients also go into antifreeze and brake fluid. Propylene glycol is one of them. Because of its toxicity the EPA requires workers to wear skin protection when working with this product and Safety Data Sheets warn that absorption through the skin can cause abnormalities in the liver, brain and kidney. Despite this it remains an ingredient in makeup and some stick deodorants.

Skin care products, cosmetics and lotions are regularly applied. Before you purchase a product, be sure you read the ingredients on the label. The parts per million of certain toxic ingredients may be very small, but if you use a product over a period of years, there will be a slow and steady build-up in your body. Mysterious illnesses can often be traced back to things that the patient thought had no consequences. One option for you would be to go organic. It would definitely be the kindest thing to do for your skin. Be sure that you start monitoring what you put on your skin before you apply it. - 15465

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