"Let's examine the reality of what we confront on a daily basis. If you are a typical person, on any normal morning of your life the following routine should be similar to your experience...
You awaken from sleeping on a mattress that was coated with flame-retardant chemicals during it's manufacture-as most mattresses are-and which emits minuscule amounts of formaldehyde gas and brominated substance known to be carcinogenic, which your body readily absorbs. You pad on your bare feet ward the bathroom, across a synthetic carpet treated-as most carpets are during manufacture-with benzene and styrene and several other cancer causing chemicals.
Once in the bathroom, you turn on the faucet and splash your face with tap water laced with fluoride and chlorine, both carcinogens (most tap water also contains traces of herbicides and pharmaceutical drugs). You open a plastic bottle of Listerine mouthwash or a similar brand and gargle, not realizing that the plastic bottle has leached it's own chemicals into a mouthwash mixture that already includes four active ingredients along with a half dozen flavoring and coloring chemicals. If you read the mouthwash label you will find the following: "WARNINGS: Do not administer to children under twelve years of age. Do not swallow. In case of accidental ingestion, seek professional assistance or contract a Poison Control Center immediately." You pick up your Crest toothpaste and find it also has a warning label: "If more than used for brushing is accidentally swallowed, get medical help..." Though sodium fluoride is the only "active" ingredient listed on this toothpaste container, there are other chemicals in this concoction that don't have to be revealed to you, because they are classified as "inert" and are thus protected under trade secrecy laws.
You raise your arms and apply Speed Stick deodorant, which contains seven chemicals, including aluminum, parabens (a preservative), propylene glycol (a lubricant and suspected cancer agent), and other chemicals disguised under "fragrance," which is another trade secrecy term. On average, according to the FDA, we each use nine personal-care products daily, containing about 126 chemical ingredients. If you use body lotions, they contain penetration-enhancing chemicals that can drive toxins from other toiletries deeper into your flesh. Before leaving the bathroom you pull a prescription drug (with a warning label attached) out of the medicine cabinet and swallow this mixture of synthetic chemicals. All the while you have been breathing benzene fumes (capable of causing leukemia) from that deodorizer you installed under the commode seat lid.
Back in your bedroom you pull on clothes fresh from the dry cleaner and expose yourself to fumes and residues of trichloroethylene and n-hexane, chemicals known to cause nerve cell damage, memory loss and cardiac abnormalities. If you have mothballs in your closet, you are exposing yourself to the carcinogenic pesticide dichlorobenzene, which is also found in toilet deodorizers. If your clothing contains synthetics fibers, you are being exposed to a form of plastic, and the newer the clothing, the more it off-gases molecules of plasticizer fumes. Your clothes may also contain flame-retardant chemicals that are notorious releasers of toxic fumes. The more tightly insulated your bedroom and the other rooms of your dwelling, the greater the off gas collection effect of the chemicals from your furniture, wall paint, rugs and carpeting, and the greater the impact on your brain, with symptoms like mood swings, feelings of spaciness, headaches, and an inability to concentrate. You walk into your kitchen and pour yourself a bowl of cereal containing nearly a dozen synthetic chemical food additives, including the sweetener asparatame, which has been linked to a wide range of allergies and illnesses. Meanwhile, while eating you turn on the dishwasher and expose yourself to a cloud of chlorine fumes along with whatever chemicals were in the detergent you poured in there. You fix yourself a sandwich you will eat for lunch later at work. You use meat that contains nitrates, synthetic hormones, and antibiotics that were injected into the animals when they were alive. You place lettuce and sliced tomato on top, each of which contains the residues of half a dozen different pesticides. Then you wrap the whole thing in Saran Wrap or a similar brand of plastic, which contains vinyl chloride, a carcinogen known to cause liver, brain and lunch cancers. As you are preparing this meal, fumes from the toxic bug spray and the cleaning solvents beneath your sink (all with warning labels attached) are further contaminating the air you breathe.
And here we are barely into the first hour of your day, you haven't even left your home yet, and already you've been absorbing molecules from hundreds of different synthetic chemicals. You haven't even come in contact yet with the really harsh toxins that are outside, generated by car exhaust and manufacturing processes, or that lie in wait for you at your workplace and in the fast food and junk food that you sometimes consume.
"We are the first generation of people to ever be exposed on a daily basis to such as unprecedented number of chemicals." says Dr. Sherry A Rogers a fellow of the American College of Allergy and Immunology. "At no other time have patients, through reading and education, had such an important and crucial role in DETERMINING their own wellness."
Randall Fitzgerald
The Hundred Year Lie
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Okay, so that's a scary reality isn't it? And this is really similar to what my life looked like before I finally started to listen to the people around me who were really into natural products and organic living . But don't worry, there are people that care about purity and natural products out there do exist that can replace these common nightmares described in this excerpt, but even when you do go to the health food store be careful! A lot of companies are still adding harmful ingredients under the name of being natural. A good example is something that just recently happened to me. We wanted to use a more natural dish liquid, so we switched from whatever name brand it was we were using before to Seventh Generation's Natural dish liquid. Like so many other people I just trusted the fact that they were being truthful with their labeling. After doing some research on Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, I started to once again go through our products we use. Sadly I turned the bottle around and read the label and found that it was the second ingredient after water... Also found this in my shampoo that I thought was natural that I got from the health food store. So you know why this one ingredient bother's me so much let me share some info about it with you:
Sodium Lauryl Sulfate is used as a surfactant to break down the surface tension of water, some used include concrete floor cleaners, engine degreasers, and car wash detergents. So why do I care? What SLS does to your organic tissue:
- SLS can be a mutagen. In sufficient amounts it is capable of changing the information in genetic material found in cells SLS has been used in studies to induce mutations in bacteria.
- It's been routinely used in clinical studies to irritate skin tissue. .It corrodes hair follicles and impairs ability to grow hair.
-Carcinogenic Nitrates can form when SLS interacts with other nitrogen bearing ingredients. SLS enters and maintains residual levels in the heart, liver lungs and brain from skin contact.
-SLS denatures protein, impairs proper structural formation of young eyes, and the damage has been proven to be permanent.
-SLS can damage the immune system, cause separation of skin layers and cause inflammation to the skin.
And I didn't just make all that up, that's from the Journal of the American College of Toxicology.
I hope you at least think about this and about how the choices you make effect your health. As I continue to study and research I will share with you what I've learned with you. I promise I won't just write depressing facts about the world we live in, because there are so many healthy eco-friendly options we can choose and I can't wait to start sharing them with you!
I wish you vibrant health!
Abigail Sitter
Owner,
Totally Natural Soaps
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