Skin Care - Ingredients To Avoid

It seems incredible, but many skin care products are loaded with ingredients that actually harm your skin over time. In this post, we'll identify them and tell you how they are harmful.  Let's get started.

Mineral Oil.   I have seen this oil used in literally hundreds of products I've looked at. Mineral oil may also go by the names liquid paraffin, paraffin wax, and petrolatum on the product label. Mineral oil is used so pervasively in skin care products for one reason:  it's cheap! The danger is that

once mineral oil is applied, it prevents the skin from "breathing."  It clogs the pores, interferes with your skin's natural ability to eliminate toxins, and can lead to those hated acne flare ups. Also, it is irritating to the skin and if used for any length of time, your skin can become dependent on it, causing chapping and dryness.   And all of those elements can lead to premature aging of the skin. It's amazing this substance is even allowed in so-called "skin care" products at all.  Now you know why your skin doesn't like mineral oil, right? Right.

Dioxane: (a synthetic derivative of coconut). This substance is widely used in skincare products. It often contains high concentrations of 1,4-dioxane, which is readily absorbed through the skin. I know this sounds crazy, but 1,4-dioxane is considered a chemical "known to the State of California to cause cancer". To think people pay money to put this stuff on their skin unknowingly is just plain scary.

Fragrances: Who doesn't like to smell nice? Well, I'm here to tell you that if you want to smell nice, use a little bit of perfume or cologne....or some body spray. Your skin care products should not contain fragrances. Many fragrances are produced from ingredients that are known to be toxic or carcinogenic.

Keep in mind that skin is the largest organ of the body, and is designed to "protect" all of our other organs.  Anything you put on it can be easily absorbed through the pores.    I know you're wondering why I recommend that you use perfume/cologne as a fragrance, but to choose your skin care products that do not contain fragrance.  

The reason is simple. When you use skin care products, they are applied all over the face, neck, and body. This covers a lot of surface area and, therefore, a great deal of chemical absorption occurs.

Now, I'm sure that many colognes and perfumes contain less than desirable substances too, but I'm enough of a realist to know that people aren't going to stop using these products to smell nice. However, with perfumes and colognes, you can achieve what you want by a small dab here and there.

So, in my opinion, this is a much better route to go than to use skin care products that also contain potentially dangerous fragrance chemicals that are directly applied and massaged into the skin all

over your body.

Parabens  include: methyl, propyl, butyl, and ethyl paraben. Many skin care products (and moisturizing products) will use parabens as a preservative so their products have a long shelf life. The reason is purely economical --- parabens are good for preserving products that may be on a store shelf for up to a year, and they are cheap.  They are also really....really bad for your skin.  Studies suggest that these same parabens that preserve skincare products may also cause cancer and interfere with the body's endocrine system, as well as causing allergic reactions and skin rashes.

Alcohols: Not all alcohols have the same properties, but these (ethanol, ethyl alcohol, methanol, benzyl alcohol, isopropyl and SD alcohol), which are commonly found in skin care products, are very drying and irritating for the skin. Alcohols such as these strip away the skin's natural acid mantle, making you more vulnerable to bacteria, molds and viruses.

Now that we've checked out some of the bad ingredients, in the next posting of this Skin Care Series we'll examine some of the good ingredients, AND....some ingredients that sound good but in fact....aren't.

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