A few days ago I went into my bathroom, emptied the contents of the cupboard and threw them all in the bin. I’ve been looking into the link between a healthy mind & body, and the toxins we absorb just by living in the modern world. This is not a new thing for me, but I’ve been taking it a bit more seriously, investigating a bit more thoroughly.
It’s probably at least 10 years since I realised the flushed cheeks, fatigue and that nasty angry, screaming feeling in my head were caused by additives in the food that i was eating. It was easy to stop choosing those foods from the supermarket shelves. Over the years I’ve traversed the full journey from avoiding a few obvious culprits, to checking the back of every packaged food I buy. The fact is, there’s not much packaged food I can buy, so I don’t.
These days I’m pretty much additive and preservative free in my daily diet. I’m not obsessive though. I still eat out regularly, will occasionally binge on chips or chocolate and will happily quaff wine that I know is laced with preservative 220. It’s a trade-off I guess. Some things are worth it!
About 3 years ago I found The Guide to Ethical Supermarket Shopping, and realised that most of my grocery budget was going to a small handful of massive, environmentally lazy, unethical corporations. Little bit by little bit I started changing brands for regular items like milk, cereal, toilet paper. I chose smaller, local brands that rated well in the guide. I started avoiding home brands when I learned that supermarkets screw local producers so far down on price that they have to cut quality or go out of business. It wasn’t a hard transition, it just took a bit of getting used to – remembering all those new brands. By the way The Ethical Guide is now available as an app. Download it!
Then I started thinking about the stuff I was putting on my body, which was being absorbed through my skin. I found out that food is 90% filtered by the liver, whereas substances we put on our skin are not filtered at all – so they are 100% absorbed. Basically what you put on your body has an effect ten times greater than what you eat. Soaps, cleansers, creams, soaks, scrubs, sprays, lotions, perfumes… reading the back of those jars & bottles started to give me the shivers. I now only use about 3 products on my skin and they are additive free to the best of my knowledge.
This week I realised I needed to take it to another level. It feels like the people around me, myself & my family included, are constantly suffering from illnesses and health issues both minor & major. I have barely seen anyone this winter, as social occasions are cancelled due to sickness. I don’t know the reasons for everybody’s poor health. But I just have this feeling that the further we get from our natural environment, the sicker we are getting. The further our food gets from it’s natural state, the worse it is for us. Doesn’t that make sense?
Google led where Google leads, and I ended up reading about xenoestrogens. I’m far from an expert, but did you know that almost all of us are likely to have more estrogen in our bodies than our ancestors (or indeed other less ‘advanced’ communities)? Xenoestrogens are compounds that mimic the behaviour of estrogen when absorbed into our bodies. They are in most plastics, detergents, beauty products, pesticides, preservatives, shampoos, air fresheners, toothpastes. They are also in most commercially raised, non-organic meat & dairy products. And water. Yup, the stuff has leached from our washing machines, our sinks, our bodies and into our soil, animals, plants and our water supply.
Scientists are still debating exactly what xenoestrogens will do to you, but to date I’ve not heard anyone say they are beneficial. That much no-one is arguing with. It seems universally accepted that excess estrogen can lead to problems with fertility, sperm count and menstruation. Estrogen dominance is a condition associated with headaches, stress, anxiety, fatigue, lowered immunity, insomnia, hair loss and PMS symptoms in women. The list of symptoms is long, and the list of related medical conditions includes scary ones like cancer.
It actually made me quite stressed just thinking about it (see I told you xenoestrogens can lead to stres). It’s hard to process and I can understand why most people prefer to avoid the topic altogether. Given it’s practically impossible to avoid the bad stuff, why even bother trying? Well, I’ve come a long way already, so I have decided to keep going.
This week I comprehensively trashed my kitchen & bathroom cupboards. I threw out almost every plastic container, except a few of the ‘less bad’ food storage ones (I’m just not ready yet!). But I made myself a promise to never use them in the microwave again. I also went out & bought pyrex containers to replace the old plastic ones.
Then I went through all the old hair & beauty products I’ve been storing under the sink for years, and accepted that I have now moved on. I will never again lather my body in methylparabens, soak in sulphates or spray myself with phosphates. No matter how delightful the label or the marketing. Into the bin they went. So therapeutic.
It’s been a good exercise. I’ve made a commitment to no more plastic – where possible. I am yet to figure out what to do about toothbrushes! And no doubt there are some things that are just better when made of plastic. But if it comes in contact with my body or my food, and there is an alternative – I’m going to choose it from now on.
What about you? It has taken me years to get to this point, and by now a lot of this stuff is just common sense. But to the newly initiated it probably sounds like a whole lot of hippy, paranoid claptrap. Especially given everywhere you turn you’re faced with products piled high with the very stuff i am trying to avoid.
I’ve been lucky (?) enough to have certain experiences in life that led me to this point. I sometimes wonder if it’s my duty to help the people I care about understand the risks they’re taking with their health, their bodies, their families. I know I know, it’s not. I’ve stayed quiet unless I know my friend is already thinking this way. But now I have a blog, so if you were foolish enough to come by for a look, now you know how I really feel!
Seriously though, let me know. Is it too hard? Too complicated? Too scary? Too time consuming?
When are YOU going to clear out YOUR bathroom cupboard???
It’s funny actually, the bathroom is the place I started! Not necessarily because of additives in the beginning, more as an act of laziness- I don’t wear makeup, I don’t use hair products (except an organic shampoo), I only use handmade, market bought soap. Sure, the shampoo and soap transition was a health and environmental decision, but getting rid of makeup, lotions and potions was pure laziness.
I’m far from where you are in the kitchen though.. My kids eat mainly fresh food, I make from scratch wherever time and energy allow (I never buy pastry, and I haven’t bought a tin of soup for a very long time). I’ve been using the ethical choices app for a while and it did seem overwhelming at first, but then the alternates just became the brands I buy and now I don’t even have to think about it (unless buying something new). I also made a decision a while ago to buy as little as possible from the supermarket. We get our meat each month at the farmers market, our fruit and veg at the green grocer, bread at the bakery and deli stuff at, well the deli. Unfortunately we have moved to a newly established area and we can’t get milk delivered here yet, but hopefully it’s not too far from starting up.
What do you use for cleaning products? I use Nature Direct for floors, spray and wipe (for want of a better description), bathrooms and glass, but I’m looking for a better option than Fab for clothes washing, and I use the Eco tablets in the dishwasher and earth liquid for manual dish washing, but I wonder if there’s a better option there too?
We’re about to move and I’m thinking that could be a good time to clear out the additives from the pantry. Thanks for the motivation! And sorry for the essay..
Hey Kirsty, I LOVE essays! We use Earth Choice mostly for cleaning products in the kitchen & laundry, but we are moving slowly to natural alternatives like bicarb soda and vinegar. That’s how I clean the oven now, anything that needs disinfecting I use vinegar, and bicarb for smellies & stains. In the bathroom as we don’t have any parabens or sulphates in soaps and shampoos so there’s no leftover residue or grime. All that’s needed is a wipe down with a glove (like ENJO but not necessarily) and perhaps a scrub with a brush every few months (really only if a dodgy shampoo or soap snuck in). If you want to go “cleaning free” in the bathroom, you have to give up your delish market soaps I’m afraid. Try Sukin body wash and Akin Shampoos. (available at Priceline, chemists and health stores). They’re nice to use and a bonus is that they don’t sting little one’s eyes. It’s a slow process, you can’t absorb all the changes at once, so it’s just one step at a time. I have Borax, Vinegar and Bicarb in the cupboard in large quantities, and every time I get the urge I look up a new way of approaching a cleaning task and try to incorporate it in the routine.
How funny, I just made my order with GREEN HEMP, one of my favourite natural skin care range. Its also the only thing that works with Niklas, who has been supersensitive from birth. I use their shampoo and conditioner and my hair is shinier than with the hair dressers crappy produts that wreck havoc with my scalp! Growing up with excema all over my body, the issue with chemicals in our bathroom cupboards has always been very clear to me, but its taken a long time for the products to be avaiable. There are some great ones out now, and I also really recommend Richmond Nature Sydney, I use their facial cream and body lotion and body wash, fantastic and smells awesome!
Beware of the ones that say they are organic, and contain a load of crap and 1 ingredient which was organic…
on the issue of not having any plasti bottles… I’m not sure I’ve seen anything that good yet! Thanks for the tips on the ethical app!!! xxx
Hey Caroline, i will look into Green Hemp, they sound yummy. I know what you mean about ‘organic’ – sh#ts me to tears! Hey when you talk about plastic bottles, do you mean adult drinking bottles or baby ones? I bought my new gorgeous stainless steel water bottle from Klean Kanteen today, and I saw these little cuties http://www.kleankanteen.com/australia/products/kid-kanteen-baby-bottles.php. I’ve also seen silicon ‘wraps’ for glass bottles so they are protected from smashes.
Hi, good reading here. My progress is sporadic, I make better choices where and when I can, and sometimes it’s a case of two steps forward one step back. On the question of clothes washing, I found soap nuts to be pretty effective. They can be ordered at http://www.newint.com.au
I have just finished my first bag, it probably lasted me 6 months or so. I feel they were effective at getting things clean, but not necessarily at keeping the whites white. Sometimes I add a spoon of bi-card to the wash cycle and about two spoons of vinegar to the rinse, (this can also be done with normal detergent but you use an 8th of the normal amount of detergent). I was feeling that this trade off wasn’t worth it for me, I don’t like my whites not being white, but then a friend told me its because of the lack of sunlight in the drying, I’ve been using clothes horses all winter, inside. So I have some experimenting to do. I find Shannon Lush, (she is on ABC radio on Wednesday afternoons I think) to be really helpful with alternative cleaning methods, she is an absolute wealth of information!
Thanks for your comment Shell and for the link to Soapnuts. I had heard of them and have been meaning to look into them for ages. They sound awesome except maybe for the white whites thing. I do remember reading somewhere (??) that a company called BEE have a natural whitener. I googled it, and their range of products looks pretty good. Maybe worth a try?
We had professional cleaners come in to deal with a serious mold problem we had in the university library. We had mold problems at home as well, so I asked them what was the best treatment for the job. They said vinegar and water mix. Their professional mold cleaning solution was basically just vinegar and water with a few other things thrown in to reduce the smell and probably aid application and drying. So since then, I’ve been using vinegar and water in a spray bottle to clean mold, but also just as a general spray and wipe cleaner. And I can verify that it works very well on mold, much better than bleach.
Regarding vinegar, I know of a number of people who use it as a shampoo in some form. I must admit that I’m not particularly keen on the idea, but perhaps it’s something worth looking into.
Final tip… I came across a web article some time back about natural approaches to cleaning etc., and they had a tip for keeping cockroaches (and if I recall correctly, mice and rats) out of pantries. Just place a few bay leaves amongst your pantry items. Since I did that, I haven’t seen one cockroach in the pantry. It seems to work very well.
Vinegar is my friend too Bernie! Our recent bad smell experience was somewhat eased by a science experiment involving bi-carb, vinegar and vanilla essence. I had never heard of the bay leaf trick though. Check – added that one to the arsenal!
Emily, you inspired me! I’ve gone through phases of buying “better” cosmetics but never gone the whole way. Well, this week I had to clean out the junk that has accumulated in the bathroom before we move and I took the opportunity to scan everything with The Good Guide app. Um, scary. I ended up with a bin full of products and an Amazon order winging it’s way to me with sulphate-free and other nasty-free products. It’s liberating! Thank you for the inspiration.
Hey Amelia, so excited to know I’ve inspired someone! I hope your new products have turned out to be as delicious as your gorgeous blog 🙂 I’d love to know what you bought and what you think of the products. I’ve been using the Sukin and Akin ranges over here, but have been considering a change to buying bulk from environment-type shops. It’s hard to let go of the little luxuries though….
Even better than throwing out your plastic containers, most of them are recyclable! Most councils now recycle up to grade 7 plastics.
Very good point!