Skin and Hair Care

The next area of our lives that we changed are still changing relates to skin and hair care products. 

The Environmental Working Group has a wonderful and very useful site called Skin Deep. Skin Deep lists the toxicity and safety rating of almost every skin, body and hair care product. 

Many baby products and products marketed towards children have poor safety ratings. Thankfully, within the past couple of years, natural products are getting easier to find. Target and a grocery store near my house both carry many Burt's Bees and Dr. Bronner's products. 

I use a 60/40 mix of olive oil and Castor oil to wash my face. I keep it in a glass bottle and it makes my face soft and moisturized without clogging my pores. After Finn was born I tried using an organic moisturizer and it made my skin break out. I've gone back to exclusively using my olive oil mix and am happy. In fact, it's the only thing during this pregnancy that has kept my face from looking like it's constantly peeling from a bad burn. 

One thing I've recently changed is to use a homemade deodorant. It was easy to make and seems promising. I've read about people washing their arm pits with baking soda and then misting or dabbing on some apple cider vinegar. I would rather not have to put that much effort into my arm pits every morning so I'm hoping this deodorant works. 

My next step is to phase out shampoo and conditioner on myself and the kids (and eventually Mathew, but he loves his good smelling shampoo) and use the no-poo method. I seldom use shampoo and have been using just conditioner for awhile now. I tried washing with baking soda and rinsing with apple cider vinegar tonight and was surprised by the results. Apple cider vinegar made my hair just as soft and tangle free as conditioner. Finnegan absolutely hates having his hair washed so I've always only used conditioner on him. I can't see him tolerating baking soda in his hair so I might wait to try the no-poo method on him until he's a bit older. Maeve, on the other hand, loves having her hair washed.

Of course, if you are a fan of shampoo and conditioner just make sure it does not contain sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) or sodium laureth sulfate (SLES). That is easier said than done though since about everything under the sun contains one of those ingredients. 

Eventually I would like to experiment with more natural toothpastes, but I am  hesitant to give up my Colgate Total.