Why Natural Personal
Care?
The skin is our largest organ,
and what we put on it is as
important to our good health
as what we eat. Natural
beauty products are non-toxic,
natural, biodegradable and
cruelty-free.
They're made
from ingredients such as
avocados, grapeseeds, jojobas,
safflowers, sunflowers and
wheat germ - ingredients that
would make a healthful
addition to our diets as well
as our skin care.
Indeed, beauty experts agree
that healthy, beautiful skin
is the result of a healthy
lifestyle including a
nutrient-rich diet, regular
exercise and a daily regime of
natural skin care and
protection. For example,
natural skin lotions which
contain jojoba, sunflower or
borage oils are light,
refreshing and can provide the
skin with nutrients.
Environmental Reasons
Natural personal care and
natural cosmetics are also
better for the environment
than petroleum-based products,
which are made with highly
refined chemicals that don't
always easily biodegrade.
Better yet, natural
cosmetics are cruelty-free,
which generally means their
formulations contain no animal
ingredients and that their
components haven't been tested
on animals for at least three
to five years.
Animal Testing
Many conventional
manufacturers continue to test
every ingredient and
formulation on animals even
though non-animal tests often
are just as effective and cost
one-tenth as much, an average
of about $50,000 per product
compared to $500,000 for
animal testing, according to
People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA) in
Washington, DC. An estimated
14 million animals suffer and
die every year in the United
States to test the safety of
cosmetics and household products.
Harmful Ingredients
Another fact to consider is
toxic ingredients such as FD&C
dyes used in hair products
which can endanger your
health. One recent study
found that women who use
synthetic hair dyes had a 50
percent greater chance of
developing non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma than women who had
never dyed their hair.
Indeed, many synthetic
ingredients found in
conventional personal care
products raise health concerns
because they may actually harm
the skin and contribute to
environmental sensitivities
and other illnesses.
Researchers found, that
multiple myeloma, a malignant
tumor of the bone marrow,
occurred at four times the
rate of the general population
in the 58,000 hairdressers,
manicurists and cosmetologists
they studied.
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