Healthy Natural Skin

Monday January 09th
Natural Face Moisturizer – Getting The Facts And Choosing Wisely
If you think that getting a natural face moisturizer is as easy as falling off a log, you should think again. You might blithely think that just a few natural ingredients in the mix will do the trick. But you would be wrong because the facts are really quite different and alarming and this is no joke! Our health is at stake.

The National Skin Authority has published some alarming figures. They say that only about 1% of the average 126 chemicals in the daily products we use in personal care have been tested. That leaves 99% of chemicals which have not been tested at all for safety and that is scary!

No matter what product you pick up, whether it is a so called natural face moisturizer or some body firming lotion, you are more than likely to find the dreaded parabens (methylparaben and ethylparaben) on the list of ingredients. These are chemical preservatives which do a really great job of keeping the mould out of skincare products. It is a pity though that they can also mimic estrogen which is a major cause of cancer, especially breast cancer in women. Now you know why the EU will soon be banning these from all personal care products.

It is incredible to realize that many products such as baby shampoo and body lotions still contain these ingredients and there does not seem to be any plans to change this situation, at least in the USA in the near future.

However there is some good news as regards a really natural face moisturizer. One company in New Zealand is committed to safe health and skin care and has decided to practise what it preaches. First off, it is a member of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. That body is a non profit coalition dedicated to eliminating dangerous toxins and carcinogens from all personal care products.

They led a campaign recently against Johnson and Johnson asking them to remove the formaldehyde releasing chemicals present in their massively popular baby shampoo. They found that J&J had only partially complied and that there are still countries where this dangerous chemical is included in the shampoo while in some countries such as the EU block, Japan and others, it is not. Why the discrimination against little babies, you might ask?

The actual chemical involved is quaternium -15 which releases formaldehyde . We know now that this formaldehyde is a carcinogen and this has been established very clearly by the US Department of Health and Human Services. As if that was not enough, the North American Contact Dermatitis Group maintains that the quaternium chemical is actually heavily implicated in contact dermatitis among children, including rashes and other allergic reactions.

Obviously we will be giving quaternium -15 and the parabens a miss but what should we be looking for in a natural face moisturizer? The answer is that the plant based oils are the best while the mineral oils and petroleum derived ingredients should be avoided like the plague.

After all, the plant based oils are the most compatible our skin whereas petrol was never meant for that delicate area of our bodies. It is better used for cars and machinery.

The best ingredients are those such as active manuka honey, shea butter, grapeseed oil, type of algae called wakame and also the astonishing nano lipobelle HEQe10.

Why not discover more about what should really be in your next natural face moisturizer?