Here’s another easy way to change your daily diet for the better. It’s just one step, but it will add to your overall health. The first tip we had was to add an apple to your afternoon. This second tip is just as simple. Ready? Here it goes:

SWITCH TO A NON-TOXIC SOAP

That’s it. Stop using most commercial soaps in your shower and bath. Most soaps contain toxins, so if you shower once a day, then you’re getting a daily dose of poisons seeping into your skin. There are a few soaps, usually found in health food stores (as well as on this website), that do not contain any toxins. They are made of natural ingredients such as aloe, neem, olive oil and various herbs and flower scents. These are the ones you want to use, because toxic chemicals from most soaps come in right through your pores during a shower or bath. This is the time when, due to hot water and steam, your pores are most open and receptive to soaking the toxins into your body.

Northwestern Health Sciences University reports:

The truth isn’t pretty and it is possibly toxic to your health. The Environmental Working Group (EWG), non-profit research and advocacy organization focused on safeguarding public health and the environment, has compiled an interactive online database (Skin Deep) that contains the safety rating of 14, 841 name-brand personal care products based on the toxicity of their ingredients.

The following is the EWG’s summary of their safety findings:

• More than one-third of all personal care products have at least one ingredient connected to cancer;
• 57 percent of all products include “penetration enhancer” chemicals that can push other ingredients faster and deeper into the skin and into the blood flow; and
• 79 percent of all products contain ingredients that may have harmful impurities like known human carcinogens, according to FDA or industry reviews. Impurities are legal and unrestricted for the personal care product industry.

Say no to Sodium Laureth Sulfate. Look for it on your soap label.

Take a trip to Whole Foods. It’s supposed to be a health food store, right? Guess again. Look at their own “365″ brand of soaps. Or look at the box of your grocery store soap, or on your shampoo bottle. Do you see sodium laureth sulfate on the label? What is that exactly? This highly-used, over-used chemical found in most soaps and shampoos acts as a penetration enhancer. It’s in shampoo/conditioner, bar soap, body wash, face cleanser, liquid hand soap, acne treatment, hair dye, mascara, shaving products, moisturizer, toothpaste, sunscreen, makeup remover, perfume, cologne. This chemical alters the structure of the skin and allows chemicals to penetrate deep into the skin, increasing the amount of chemicals reaching the blood stream.

Sodium lauryl sulfate is used throughout the world for clinical testing as a primary skin irritant. Laboratories use it to irritate skin on test animals and humans so that they may then test healing agents to see how effective they are on the irritated skin.

A study at the University of Georgia Medical College, indicated that SLS penetrated into the eyes as well as brain, heart, liver, etc., and showed long-term retention in the tissues. The study also indicated that SLS penetrated young children’s eyes and prevented them from developing properly and caused cataracts to develop In adults.

May cause hair loss by attacking the follicle. Classified as a drug in bubble baths because it eats away skin protection and causes rashes and infection to occur.

Is potentially harmful to skin and hair. Cleans by corrosion. Dries skin by stripping the protective lipids from the surface so it can’t effectively regulate moisture.

Another extremely serious problem is the connection of SLS with nitrate contamination. SLS reacts with many types of ingredients used in skin products and forms nitrosomines (nitrates). Nitrates are potential cancer-causing carcinogenics.

Because of the alarming penetrating power of SLS, large amounts of these known carcinogens are absorbed through the skin into the body. A variation of SLS is SODIUM LAURETH SULFATE (Sodium Lauryl Ether Sulfate- SLES). It exhibits many of the same characteristics and is a higher-foaming variation of SLS.

• SLS can damage the immune system; causing separation of skin layers and inflammation of skin. Journal of the American College of Toxicology; Vol. 2, No. 7, 1983
• SLS penetrates into the skin and into the eyes, and is also held in the brain, heart and liver. A single drop stays in the brain and body for a few days – Doctor’s worry: Is your baby safe? David L. Kern, New health and longevity
• SLS denatures proteins of eye tissues – impairing eye development permanently. Dr. Keith Green, PHD, D.Sc., Medical College of Georgia
• SLS is a mutagen. It is capable of changing the information in genetic material found in cells. SLS has been used in studies to induce mutagen in bacteria. Higuchi, Araya and Higuchi, school of medicine, Tohoku University: Sendai 980 Japan
• SLS is a potent carcinogen when contaminated with a nitrosamines. FDA Report 1978

(Source: Kramer, Shelley, Health Communications)

Looking for a clean soap without chemicals? Try our Neem Aloe Soap, which contains neem, an oil from a tree in India shown to have antibiotic qualities. It’s the natural way to get clean.

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