I’ve just started writing a ten-part series on the ten most profound changes I’ve made in my life that have contributed to my health and happiness this year. Last week, I wrote about water with the subject line “How to change your life”. This is part two.
I must admit, I don’t have a clever, pithy way to start this story. It’s been an intuitive change I’ve made only in the last year. I’ll do my best to explain its strangeness and how I believe it’s impacted me.
The change has been a huge shift in how I think about personal care products. That includes what products I use, how I use them, and what I have stopped using entirely.
I admit that I have never given a second thought to what I put on my skin, hair and nails. I’ve been a Rexona deodorant girl my whole life. I buy whichever sunscreen happens to be on sale that week. I use any conditioner that can get knots out of unruly hair. I’ve never been on the particularly high-end side of the spectrum or the low. I don’t consider myself a “high maintenance” or “low maintenance” girl – more in the middle. I wear makeup for special occasions only, try to maintain a consistent skincare regime and use any toothpaste that’s minty, contains fluoride and is on special.
Well, that is until last year.
Last year, I did some personal development called The Spiral. I’ve spoken about it before and will speak about it again at more length in this series. For today, though, I want to flag the result of The Spiral.
After going through 8 weeks of energy clearing, working through the seven chakras (energy centres of the body), it feels like there has been a complete reset. I’ve done the Spiral twice, and both times, there was a feeling of being shiny and new, scrubbed clean of all the extra drama and stories that make up the human experience.
Now, it is very easy for that scrubbed new feeling to pass. I think the first time I did the spiral lasted only a few weeks. Life was busy, and I had more drama and stories to add to my list. Haha.
This recent time around was very different. I had the time, space and desire to stay in this beautiful state of alignment. That’s the best word for it – alignment. Everything magically drops away except for the right choices for me.
During the early days of this integration period, I felt inclined to stop using every single personal care product I owned, with the sole exception being toothpaste.
I stopped using deodorant. I stopped using soap. I stopped using shampoo and conditioner. I stopped using cleansers and moisturisers. I stopped using sun cream. Those are the fundamentals, you might say. The “must-haves”.
So, needless to say, I also stopped all the extras. No makeup, nail polish, skin serums, hand creams, night creams, neck creams, exfoliators. Nothing. I also stopped shaving and waxing altogether. Including under my arms.
Coming up to a year of having underarm hair.
The only reason I did all of this was because it was the only right choice for me at the time. With all the drama and stories stripped away, it was completely obvious that I didn’t need any of those things.
The next thing to happen is that my hair got quickly out of control. Luckily I had an app on my phone called ‘Yuka’. A friend recommended it, and it allows you to scan food or beauty products to find out which harmful additives they contain. The app then scores them accordingly, and you can make an educated decision on whether to purchase and use the product.
I had a few bad hair days.
I found an affordable hair conditioner ranked 65/100 and scored ‘good’, with only five low-risk ingredients and 23 other risk-free ingredients. After scanning almost every hair conditioner on the shelf at the supermarket and the chemist, this was the best store-bought one I could find in my price range. (Incidentally, it’s a Fructis Banana Hair Food, but I am actively looking for something better.)
I began using this product once a week on the ends of my hair ONLY when it became a knotted mess. To this day, that is my hair care regime. I swim in the ocean every day, and once a week, I rub a little Banana Hair Food into the ends of my hair and comb it out. That’s it!
Around the same time, I started to smell myself. Honestly, this was a weird time because I’ve always associated personal odour with badness. I was taught, and I believe that we all are, that personal odour should be respectfully masked with the strongest antiperspirant deodorant on the market.
I remember my mum first buying deodorant for me as a teenager and never questioning it. I, like everyone else, just blithely sprayed this shit under my arms. Never mind the fact that it stops us from perspiring completely. I mean – surely the makers of deodorant know more about the human body’s natural processes than the actual human body. (Sarcasm)
And yet, despite all my subconscious beliefs and programming around deodorant, I found myself actually LIKING my natural smell even when it was strong. (Omg, what will you guys think of me after reading this? Haha)
Despite this, there was no denying that on some days, it was stronger than others, and it was probably not a bad idea to do SOMETHING to manage it. So I googled homemade, natural deodorant, purchased a few natural/ affordable ingredients, and whipped up my first batch of simple, odour-masking (not antiperspirant) deodorant. It contains shea butter, coconut oil, essential oils and arrowroot starch. I’ll share the recipe at the end of this email.
I use this deodorant once or twice a fortnight when I notice my body odour is particularly strong. Although to be honest, I still often don’t bother.
Finally, I also noted the need for sun protection in those early days. This was a tough one.
I’m a fair-skinned redhead living in a country that my ‘people’ have no business living in. I’m not diving into colonialisation here. (Let’s work up to that, hey?) I’m talking about the pragmatic fact that I am not evolutionarily programmed to thrive in such a hot and sunny climate. Despite that, I love the sun. (In fact, more sunlight exposure is one of the lesser changes I made this year that didn’t make the top ten list but was nevertheless impactful.)
I’ve never liked suncream. It’s greasy. It smells weird. It feels gross on my skin. It’s expensive. It’s packaged in plastic. It feels gross on my skin. (That’s the big one.)
Although I was in school smack bang in the middle of the biggest campaign ever done to promote suncream, the slip, slop, slap campaign, I avoided it at all costs as often as I could get away with it.
Growing up, I had some significant sunburns, too. One memorable one occurred in my early 20s when I spent a day on the reef with my ass in the air snorkelling. The next day my skin was so red and damaged that I left an entire layer of it on the couch when I stood up. Excruciating.
Luckily, I was a chef and therefore spent most of my life sleeping days, working nights, and generally avoiding excessive sun exposure. That is until I became a photographer and regularly went out into the elements at all times of the day.
Reflecting on those long days outdoors, I always knew when enough sun was enough. I could feel it. I would usually go out without suncream until my skin told me it had had enough. When I listened, I didn’t get burnt. When I ignored the message, I did.
I digress. The important thing is that it was the middle of Summer when I finished The Spiral last year, and I needed some sun protection for days I wanted to be out for long stretches, beach days with the family etc.
So, I took my Yuka App to the suncream aisle. And what I found out absolutely shocked the hell out of me. Firstly, the suncream that I was currently using, a nondescript generic brand, was ranked 9/100 with a score of ‘bad’. It contained 1 hazardous ingredient, 2 moderate-risk ingredients and 1 low-risk ingredient. The hazardous ingredient, Octocrylene, is the part of the sun cream that blocks the sun’s UV rays.
Source, Yuka App.
Source, Yuka App.
It is also endocrine-disrupting (meaning it messes with your hormone production), AND it breaks down into a carcinogenic compound. Yes. You read that right. Suncream, a product designed to help you avoid cancer, contains an ingredient that gives you cancer. This is not a conspiracy. This is a fact. And none of this considers suncream’s damage to aquatic life if you’re swimming in natural environments.
I instinctively knew it all along, but seeing that 9/100 and reading about what my suncream contained really stopped me in my tracks. The next scariest part was that every suncream I scanned at the supermarket, including the trendy and expensive brands and those labelled more natural, scored badly. Two other suncreams I had at home scored 3/100. (And they were way more expensive than the generic one that scored 9/100.)
I had no option but to throw it all in the bin. How can you put endocrine-disrupting cancer-causing compounds on your skin willingly when you know that the risks of the product far outweigh the risks of sun exposure?
And on that note, we NEED sunlight on our skin—even the lightest of us. Our population is chronically vitamin D deficient. Even my skin doctor tells me to get enough sun in the early and later hours of the day and the middle of the day. Don’t take my word for it, do the research and test your own limits.
Sun is life.
But I enjoy being out in the sun for far longer than my skin does, and for that, I need to cover up and wear a little suncream on my exposed body parts. I again turned to Google and found a natural suncream recipe and helpful knowledge about nano versus non-nano zinc particles and why we always want to use the latter. (Non-nano.)
I ordered some non-nano zinc oxide, a readily available ingredient – who knew?! And I got to work making a natural suncream with shea butter as a base. (I’ll include the recipe below.)
Non-nano zinc oxide
It’s very thick and laborious to apply, but I only use it on the days I’m in the sun for long periods in the middle of the day. In a year, I’ve only made two batches and shared both with a friend.
I’ve covered conditioner, deodorant and suncream. The only other product I use is toothpaste, and I have switched that over from the very poorly ranked Colgate range to Grant’s Natural Toothpaste (fluoride free, read my last email), which ranks over 70/100.
My family, who you may consider more hygienic than me after reading this email, use a handful of other products – soap, shampoo, and body lotion. Using the Yuka App, I have changed what I buy, steering clear of anything with hazardous ingredients.
A little conditioner rubbed through the ends of my hair once a week, a smidgen of homemade deodorant rubbed under my arms once a week, a small amount of suncream on my hands and neck now and again and natural toothpaste when I brush my teeth, that is all I put on my skin. That is all I allow to permeate my body. My temple. And do you want to know the best bit?
My hair looks the best it’s ever looked and is the longest it’s ever been.
I rarely have strong body odor.
My skin doesn’t burn in the sun. (When I listen to it.)
And I look healthy and glowy, with the only exception being that I want to find a good, natural face moisturizer for the days I feel dry. I’ll probably end up making one.
New hair, who dis.
I can’t for sure tell you that personal care products damage your physical health. But I can tell you that blithely using a dozen or more products on your largest organ (your skin) daily will have SOME impact.
Think about it. Why do you use what you use? Do you know what’s in your products? Are they ethically made? Do the companies that make them do good stuff in the world? Are they helping you to be strong, vital, connected and aligned with yourself? Do they create safety in your body or disconnect you from it?
It’s time to start asking those questions. Not only will it impact your physical health, but it will also allow you to start stepping off the capitalist treadmill it’s so easy to get trapped on.
I stopped shaving under my arms because I was weary of the thought of buying single use razors for the rest of my life. Should I choose to start again, I’ll probably buy one razor, learn how to use it safely, and sharpen it forever. How have these basic skills been lost?
WAKE UP! Question everything. We, women especially, have been subconsciously told that we’re not good enough or worthy enough in the world without good looks. Looks that are conveniently achieved through the consumption of personal care products. It’s a lie. Hand on heart, I have never felt sexier than I do right now. Salt-crusted skin, tangled red curls, underarm hair, human smell, and all.
Don’t tell me I don’t look healthy.
Experiment with yourself. Ditch a product a week. Make better choices at the supermarket. Simplify your life, and happiness is there. The less useless shit I buy, the happier I find myself. I feel like a powerful, self-sufficient boss in my own body.
It’s time for the convenient bullet-point advice:
- Start auditing what products you use on your skin and body. Yes, all of them.
- Download the Yuka app and upgrade to the paid version. It’s much better. Use it to educate yourself about the products you use.
- Ditch or swap anything hazardous to your health.
- BONUS: Find a recipe online, to replace one product you use – deodorant, soap, lip balm. Try to make it and see how satisfying it feels.
You’ll both love me and hate me for this one. Once you know, you can’t ’un-know’ how harmful these products are. I know they smell and look so lovely, and they foam and make you feel clean and good, but they’re a lie.
Loving yourself means loving your body, and loving your body means protecting it. Natural is best.
And please comment. Tell me what resonated. Swear at me because you discovered your favourite shower gel is 5/100. Or tell me to piss off with my truth bombs. 😉
I love you,
Lauren xx
P.S. I forgot to mention that I do use hand soap after using the toilet. I’ve switched from a low ranked (20/100) product to a ‘Natural State’ Lavender and Sandalwood hand wash (86/100). I’ll be working on detergents etc next.
**Originally published to my email database on the 19th of September, 2024**
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