The Great Indoors

What is 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, 0.93% Argon, 0.038 Carbon Dioxide?

YES, It’s AIR! You astrophysicist you.

I have been interested in air and air quality ever since I learned that there are many particles and gases in the air that are harmful for our bodies. We are exposed to many of these everyday.

As we are now in the colder months (in the Northern Hemisphere) we tend to stay indoors a greater percentage of the time. Indoor air can be harmful if it is not properly circulated or treated. Indoor air can contain constituents such as VOCs from paints and coatings as well as formaldehyde concentrations from carpeting and insulation.  On top of that indoor air that is not circulated/recharged properly with the outdoors can be oxygen deplete.

There is a solution:

Indoor plants such as the Money Tree, Mother-in-laws Tongue can literally ”Grow Clean Air” as proven in a TED talk by Kamal Meattle and are easy to maintain in the home or in the office.

For a more compact solution check out: Andrea, a pure product that uses a single potted plant to rid up to 144 ft² of VOCs and formaldahyde, as it lists in its product specs.

When it’s too cold to open the windows, recharge and purify your air the natural way. Stay healthy in the Great Indoors.

…..And no, this wasn’t named after that John Mayer song.

Feed Your Skin Right

There have been a lot of people out there stressing about how to improve/maintain the look and quality of their skin through means of a special diet. Although I believe “you are what you eat”, I also realize that the skin “eats” too.

The skin, our largest organ, breaths, dies, protects us and absorbs every day.  On top of that, our skin has the main function of retaining fluids within our bodies. The funny thing is that most of us, including me, only immediately care about how the first few layers look. From experience, most of my skin problem occur through absorption through pores in my skin. The skin simply gets irritated. Choosing pure skincare products that don’t contain harmful chemicals and cleanse your pores can help this. Natural oils can help your skin glow while cleaning/protecting your pores. I challenge those same people to put the flipside in perspective, your skin IS what it eats.

Feed your skin Right

Some nerdy research about how skin absorbs.

The Report Is In

Here’s a Healthiness Report Card for a female friend of mine. The report was complied using The Good Guide and Environmental Working Group’s (cosmeticdatabase.com). There are some good low toxicity skincare products in the group, such as Jason Moisturizer, as well as a bunch that contained Methylparaben. She received a average toxicity rating of 5.72 out of 10, notably worse than the guys personal care products.

pureproducts

Natural Beauty Remedies

We have all seen the individual with cucumber slices on their eyes in hopes of removing the bags. This along with eggs in hair to make hair shine, rubbing oranges on skin, etc. have been (somewhat) proven natural beauty remedies. I found another that has seemingly good results…the tomato skin face shine.

Tomato Scrub

Another natural way to enhance your skin. Although no one will be around when I try this….

What “Fragrance” Really Is

Watch the EWG’s take on the harmful potential of fragrances in your everyday consumer products here:

EWG on Fragrances

Toxin Investigation

The Pure Deodorant Search has led me to bigger things…..

I decided to conduct a investigation about the ‘healthlyness’ of personal care products I use. The purpose was to identify the products that contain harmful chemicals in order to replace them with more pure alternatives.  The most common toxin on the list is Fragrance followed by Methyl Paraben. List was complied using The Good Guide and Environmental Working Group’s (cosmeticdatabase.com)

toxin investigation

The Search for Pure Deodorant

In a quest to try and limit the amount of chemicals my body is exposed to, I started to analyze my personal care products. More specifically the deodorant I use.

The Beginning

The search for a natural deodorant started when I began using deodorant.  I developed rashes from many forms of deodorant. I tried numerous stick deodorants (gel and dry) without avail. Then I took to spray deodorants (which still caused irritation but much less sporadically) when I was 16 and have used them ever since. I knew there had to be a better product out there…and so my search began.

Research

I ran the product I use by a couple of rating sites and found:

deodorant2

Results of Findings: Not That Good

EW’s [cosmeticdatabase.com] Rating: 5 (scale is based on level of toxicity 0-10, 0 being the best)

The Good Guide Health Rating: 7.0 (scale is based on ‘goodness’ for you 1-10, 10 being the best)

Both ratings expose butane and fragrance as the main ingredients to worry about in that the ingredient ‘fragrance’ could contain a multitude of bad chemicals and that butane causes surface irritation and is currently banned in the EU(European Union) for use in personal care products. Which brings me to the question: Why am I paying to put these bad chemicals in my body??

Choices

I’ll tell you first off, I am not a health guru or a doctor, but I know that many chemicals can get absorbed through the skin and stay in your body. Since the under arms or arm pits contain many pores (see link: skin anatomy) it’s especially easy for the chemicals to enter your body there.

I made the obvious decision to stop using spray deodorant. I lead an active lifestyle so I needed a product that could be effective against body odor while containing no harmful substance and skin irritants.

My search led me to three choices:

1. Crystal Deodorant Stone

2. Arm & Hammer Essentials

3. A home remedy of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and water.