"ALL-ONE-GOD-FAITH. ALL-ONE!” If you don’t know about Dr. Bronner products, you don’t know what you’re missing! These soaps are incredibly pure and can be used in so many different ways (“18-in-1” uses) such as laundry soap, hand soap, body soap, aroma therapy, massage and more. Completely biodegradable and vegetable-based, this is the #1 selling brand of natural soap in America. The ingredients are water, saponified organic coconut, organic palm, olive, hemp and jojoba oil, essential oils, citric acid, and vitamin E. These products are certified to rigorous USDA National Organic Program standards and also certified Fair Trade by the respected Swiss certifier IMO. No BS from this company! You will love their products and also enjoy reading their mystical and poetic product labels.

Shout out to Michael Hagey for reminding me about Dr. Bronner. I’m going back to this as my laundry detergent. Also, I haven’t tried their organic lotions, but the ingredients are superb and I intend to buy some.

www.drbronner.com & http://www.drbronner.com/dr_bronners_philosophy.html

PS: A lot of new “green” companies have come along and many refuse to divulge all their ingredients on the basis that they are not legally required to. Just more wool over the eyes. Dr. Bronner’s is a tried and true, no-nonsense, old-world-style product.

UPDATE onSunscreen

I just read today that citrus oils in sunscreen can photoreact and possibly repress the skin's antioxidant capabilities. If you were to photo-react to the grapeseed oil in Loving Naturals sunscreen, you might get a deeper burn than if you used some other product. I still think Loving Naturals is a very good choice. I am photosensitive and I am not having increased burning with use of this product. Also, photosensitivity happens most often with bergamot, lemon, lime, orange, and angelica oil.

Here is what Badger says about citrus oil in their product: “Many of you have asked us why our sunscreen has citrus oils in the formulation when citrus oils are known to be photosensitizing. The simple answer is that we use very small quantities of the citrus essential oils and the percentages are so low that the oils are not considered photosensitizing. In addition, Lime Essential Oil, which is of particular concern, is no longer photosensitizing when it is Steam Distilled. We only use Steam Distilled Lime Essential Oil. In the very low percentages that we use (>.032% each by weight), the citrus essential oils can safely be used to enhance the fragrance of the product without any photosensitivity concern.”

My apologies for any confusion. The sunscreen issue is so important but a very difficult  topic. In general, try to stick with Zinc Oxide-based ("blocking") formulas, i.e., not sunscreens that are absorbed into the skin and make sure the product is non-nano (the particle size is at least above 100nm. You can email the manufacturer and ask about particle size). I understand if you don't like the whiteness of the blocking formulas. Add something over it to color it up (although what you add could be photoreactive, so be careful).  Another potential solution is to use the "absorptive" sunscreens only for when you are out in public and wear a hat (although you should always wear a hat midday!).

Wrinkle Remover and Sunscreen

I've accidentally stumbled on to a fantastic wrinkle remover! Well, nothing “removes” wrinkles, but mine are really smoothed out by this product. Loving Naturals SPF 30 Sunscreen is one of the purest sunscreens you’ll find, made from grape seed oil, coconut oil, and other nut oils, everything non-GMO, with non-micronized zinc-oxide as the active ingredient (and they even increased their particle size recently). You don’t get much volume for your money with this product (purity is costly), so you’d want to use this only on your face. More details on sunscreens in a future post (I’ll only touch this with a very long pole), but generally (for starters) you do not want to use anything that ends in “zone," "zole," or that begins with Octo" or "Octyl" as those chemicals actually make you burn faster and are also absorbed in to your bloodstream. Best to avoid Vitamin A (retinyl palmitate) for now and do not use spray-on or powder sunscreens.

Loving Naturals may not be the greatest solution if you tend to break out, although I do and I’m not having any problems. Another sunscreen to try, this could be your basic pick for all-over coverage, is anything in the Badger line. Badger contains titanium dioxide (safe when non-nano) in addition to zinc oxide and the product uses micronized particles only (although it does have a considerably smaller particle size than Loving Naturals). The Whole Foods here in Franklin is very smart. They have done their research. Instead of giving you 5, 10 or 20 sunscreens to chose from, they only stock 4 or 5 from the Badger line.

Loving Naturals and Badger sunscreens are quite white on your skin because of the zinc-oxide base. Try waiting 5 minutes and rubbing it in. I add a little colored mineral powder over it so it doesn't look pasty.  Make sure the mineral powder has a micron size of 10 (coarse) or greater! Otherwise you are inhaling the particles into your lungs.

PS: Loving Naturals sunscreen can also double as a safe diaper rash ointment. Generally the diaper rash in the stores has nano-sized zinc oxide (undisclosed) and you don’t want to experiment with that on your baby!

Truth about Chemicals in Our Environment

Here’s a link to a lecture at Princeton on how synthetic chemicals get into bodies. Including how to reduce your "toxic load".

http://hulk03.princeton.edu:8080/WebMedia/flash/lectures/20111114_whatsgotten.shtml

Pure Life Soap Company - Non-GMO

The Pure Life Soap Company has informed me that they are absolutely non-GMO. They are "active members of the non-GMO program within their distribution channels."


I fully endorse this product!

GMOs in Lotions and Cosmetics

See NoBullBeauty.com and Cosmetics Info (www.cosmeticsinfo.org) regarding GMO oil (from soy, corn, lecithin) and proteins from GMO yeast making its way into lotions and cosmetics. “While their effects on humans are relatively unknown, the FDA and U.S. Department of Agriculture have approved more than 40 plants for genetic modification. (These) were introduced in 1996 and the oils from these foods may now be being used in your skin care products."  I have an email into The Pure Life Soap company to find out if the corn used in their lotion is GMO or not.

A Terrific Body Lotion: Or So I Thought

I was in the health food store once asking for a pure lotion. They had five shelves full of products and the manager only brought me one bottle: Pure Life Soap Company’s Coconut and Vanilla body lotion. Free of parabens, alcohol, and dyes, this product contains, water, sunflower oil, safflower seed oil, coconut oil, vegetable glycerin, aloe extract, comfrey extract. This product also contains calcium gluconate, a form of calcium.

Now just to show you the complexity involved in finding a pure product, this lotion also contains glucono delta lactone, a vegetable product typically derived from corn. So when I hear corn, my GMO radar goes up. Is it all right to put GMOs on our skin but not eat them? (I need to look into this further. If the corn is not GMO, no worries at all). Next we have sodium benzoate which seems to me is in (has always been in) everything. The EWG gives that a low-risk rating, but there is some concern it may cause organ toxicity.

Of course, the purest thing you can put on your skin is anything that comes directly from nature, such as honey, or sugar and butter (yum: a great body scrub), olive oil or any other kind of natural oil. While these do wonders for your skin and your pocketbook, and are undoubtedly healthy, they tend to clog the pipes rather quickly and make it so that you need to clean the bathtub often, if not every time you bathe or shower. We love lotions precisely because they are not so oily. Onward and upwards in the quest for a truly, completely pure body lotion.

ShiKai Hand and Body Lotion "Yuzu"

This is a pretty good product. It is not as simple or pure as some other products. The simplicity here comes in the fact that I can pick this one up at my local grocery store (no ordering or paying for shipping)! This product is based on natural oils including shea, aloe, apricot, and avocado. Water is the first ingredient (always good) and aloe vera is the second ingredient (also good). If you are not aware of this, ingredients at the beginning of the list are in the largest concentration, those at the bottom in the smallest concentration. This product contains glycerin and vegetable wax which can inhibit your skin from breathing as well as dimethicone which can backfire in that regard, so it’s not something you want to slather on all over yourself. But it’s great as a hand lotion and as an occasional body lotion. Don’t use it on the face as it contains (at the lower register) phenoxyethanol which has been classified by the European Union as toxic when used around the mouth and is restricted for use in cosmetics in Japan.