Skin Care Products

Our skin is the largest organ of the body and we take it for granted regularly. It’s the one and only barrier between our internal organs and the environment. You may have seen this statement multiple times, but I’ll say it again - anything that goes on the skin, goes in so we must use more caution with the products we choose to use topically! If you are gluten and dairy free or low salicylate, these are considerations that must also be cross-referenced with your personal care products that go on the skin.

The skin is also home to a unique microbiome that provides our first defense system against foreigners. It’s important to encourage the growth of beneficial bacteria, rather than harming them with chemicals and hand sanitizers that kill a wide spectrum of bacteria.

Camel Milk soap

This is dreamy, creamy soap and once you try it, you will never want to try anything else! It has been my favorite and only bar soap for years! It’s great for the face and even for shaving. I was historically very sensitive to anything put on my face, but this soap actually cleared up my facial skin as soon as I began using it!

The Oasis Camel Dairy milks their own camels for the camel milk ingredient and Gil and Nancy Rigler, owners of the Oasis Camel Dairy, hand make these beautiful soaps themselves, right at the farm.

My favorite scents are the Ponegranate, the Frankincense and Myrrh, and the Original. They aren’t overpowering, they are soft and subtle. The Original is nice if you require scent free. I use it often myself, just to take a break from the scented soaps occasionally too.

Cleure

If you or a loved one needs to avoid high salicylate ingredients that are commonly found in many natural personal care products, like coconut oil and aloe vera, this is the brand for you! Our younger son is very sensitive to salicylate so I’ve had to experiment with a lot of natural products for him.

We use their hand soap (one in every bathroom for my younger son), sunblock and hair gel.

Cleure also has hair care, oral care, and make-up so look around to see if you like anything else.

Probiotic Power

We use the face, hand and body wash in the shower. It makes a great shaving cream too!

P2 i Clean Every Inch Gentle Face, Hand & Body Wash has mild detergents that clean away surface dirt - then our organic probiotics go deeper to clean at the microscopic level, eliminating the biofilm that harbors and feeds bad bacteria on your skin’s surface. The result is cleaner, healthier, younger looking skin. Our wash provides and extra clean feeling to sensitive/private areas.

Ingredients: A proprietary blend of FDA GRAS Probiotics, Water, Organic Coconut Surfactant, Organic Glycerin, Organic Spearmint, Organic Vanilla. No phthalates, salts, parabens or SLS.

**Because of the coconut and spearmint, I wouldn’t recommend this for anyone who has salicylate sensitivities.

We also use their Skin and Body Spray as hand sanitizer and our salicylate sensitive son seems to do fine with it. We only use it when we are out in public so it may be dose-dependent. The ingredients for the spray are: A Proprietary Blend of FDA GRAS Spore Probiotics. Water, Organic Vanilla, Organic Spearmint.

**If you want a probiotic spray to use as a hand sanitizer that doesn’t have the added scent ingredients, we also use PureBiotics mist or all-purpose cleaner (transferred into a small travel spray bottle) on our hands.

Konjac Charcoal Sponges

These sponges are great for gentle exfoliation. Use them all over, not just for the face. They are created from a vegetable fiber that is found naturally in the root of the konjac plant which is native to Southeast Asia and has been used in Chinese medicine for centuries. The sponges do not contain parabens, sulfates, or other harmful chemicals. Konjac is extremely good at absorbing water and causes the sponges to become very soft when soaked in warm water for a couple of minutes. This makes them ideal for individuals who are looking for a bath accessory that will not scratch or irritate the skin, but can still remove excess dirt, oil, and dead skin cells.

Soap Saver

Get the most out of your bar soap with these Soap Savers. Their durable construction prevents that wasteful soapy puddle from forming by elevating soaps, allowing the entire bar to dry evenly. They're great for bath sinks, kitchens, showers, or tubs and can be trimmed to fit anywhere. Cleaning is as easy as a quick rinse under a faucet!

If you buy the camel milk bar soap above, these are great for extending the life of the bar.

Miracle II Soap

It's a soap ... cleaner ... degreaser ... and deodorizer... all in one! Miracle II Soap cleanses your skin, your hair, and your home -- including the laundry. One of the most amazing products that has ever been presented to mankind! Most of this spiritual product is from the dust of the earth, without the drawbacks and harsh ingredients of ordinary soaps and detergents.
Naturally concentrated and decontaminating. Dilute it to create solutions for light, medium, or heavy cleaning. We dilute it in a sudsing pump dispenser for the shower and to use as hand soap.

Contains: Electrically engineered eloptic energized stabilized oxygenated water, Ash of Dedecyl solution, Dehydrabiethylamine (a safe substance that chemists cannot correctly identify, not to be confused with dehydrobiethylamine), Calcium, Potassium, Magnesium, Natural Foaming Agent.

The green color is derived from dehydrated sea-weed. It's full of trace minerals and provides benefits over artificial colorings. It also helps buffer the soap for an alkaline pH.

Razor

Have you ever looked closely at your razor? See that little moisture strip? Any idea what’s in that? I’m going to guess it’s probably not a high quality, gluten-free, non-toxic product. I don’t know about you, but I’m not a fan of mystery ingredients, especially in contact with skin with abrasion (aka - shaved). 😳

The way I see it, there are two options. One is to use a high quality double-edge safety razor like this Edwin Jagger, or you can buy the Schick Hydro 5 and interestingly enough, it has a “precision flip trimmer” that allows you to flip the moisture strip back slightly so it doesn’t touch the skin. Is the lubricant still running in the water as you use it, perhaps, so it’s definitely a matter of preference either way.

Replacing the blades on the Edwin Jagger is super cheap and learning to use it isn’t hard at all. It may look intimidating, if you’ve never used one before. It’s a safety razor after all, so the razor edge doesn’t actually extend beyond the edge of the razor head, it’s buried and requires using it at a certain angle to expose the skin to the razor, not much different than a standard razor. The only difference is that there is no mystery strip creating moisture, so you will want to lubricate the skin well to avoid razor burn.

Hand Sanitizer

You’ll see a variety of these everywhere from public restrooms to doctor’s offices, gymnasiums, and even the entrances of department and grocery stores. The intent is a good one, it’s an attempt to reduce the spread of germs (bad bugs) on the things we touch the most. Unfortunately, the products being used do more harm than good. One commonly used hand sanitizer is Purell. The Environmental Working Group rated this product, and the ingredients range from a safety index of 1 to 9 on a scale of 1-10! Some of the concerns listed for these ingredients are:  developmental and reproductive toxicity, biochemical or cellular changes, cancer, organ system toxicity, allergies, immunotoxicity, irritation of the skin, eyes or lungs, neurotoxicity, ecotoxicity, get the point? Do you really want to put this on your baby’s hands, or even on your hands? 

Toxicity aside, the other concern with hand sanitizers and antibacterial soaps is that they are not selective about the bacteria they kill and by wiping out the good bacteria on your skin, you are eliminating an important protective barrier designed by your incredibly smart immune system. The beneficial microbes on your skin are the first line of defense in protecting your body from invaders. We want to encourage the survival of the good guys, not wipe them out, we need them! If you wipe the slate clean with the products that kill bacteria, you are only leaving the skin defenseless and vulnerable to other “bad guys” in the environment. Now, that virus or bacteria you picked up by touching the handle to the door at the post office or grocery store is free to multiply and hang around on your defenseless skin, waiting for you to touch your mouth or rub your eye. Next thing you know, you’re sick.

My family has chosen to use a probiotic spray to protect ourselves from microbes. Using probiotics instead of products aimed to kill, improves the beneficial bacteria counts on our skin, warding off the bad guys naturally, and without harmful toxic ingredients. We use two different brands. The P2 Probiotics is the product in the photo, and these are the ingredients: A Proprietary Blend of FDA GRAS Spore Probiotics. Water, Organic Vanilla, Organic Spearmint.

The photo shows a full size can, but they make travel sized body sprays too which fit perfectly in a purse or diaper bag. If you don’t like the added vanilla and spearmint in this product, you can also use PureBiotics unscented mist in a spray bottle. It literally contains just the probiotics and water.

Sunscreen

Notice that word broken down is “sun” “screen” which is exactly what sunscreen does, it screens or blocks the sun, and all of it’s essential goodness! Ideally, sunblock should be reserved for days when you are going to be in high noon sun for prolonged periods of time, because blocking the sun, also blocks vitamin D production, which is essential for fighting cancer. So we are going to see a lot of skin cancer in this next generation who has been taught from birth to LIVE in sunblock. Makeup is even being made with sunblock in it now! Vitamin D deficiency is going to skyrocket with a practice of sun avoidance and chronic sunscreen use.

To produce a full day’s worth of vitamin D, you only need about 10-30 minutes of full mid-day sun exposure (all limbs and face exposed) so you could easily just add your sunscreen (non-toxic, of course 😛) after you get your quota for the day. We try to plan our days around the sun and prefer to go out for longer periods of time before 11am and after 3pm. If we are going to be out in the middle of the day, we wait a few minutes before applying sunscreen.

Moisturizing the face, hands and body

Keeping the skin hydrated is tasked with the challenge of avoiding toxic chemicals marketed towards particular age groups: baby-soft infant skin, acne-prone skin of teens, age-prevention for the millennials, and the aging skin of mature women.

The truth is, if you are using an oil, none of this matters! Hydration and a healthy diet is the key to keeping skin soft, clear, supple and plump.

It may be a new concept for you, but fighting oil with oil is the most effective way to reduce oily skin and maintain hydration. The right oil can act like an astringent, condition the skin, lock in moisture, reduce irritation and nourish your skin.

The condition of the skin is a direct indication of what is going on inside the body. If you are prone to acne, eczema, hives, peeling skin or even psoriasis, these conditions are more about what is going on inside. The skin is a secondary detox pathway, meaning when a primary detox pathway is backed up, it’s likely you will see symptoms surface at the skin. A re-evaluation of the diet is usually the most promising course of action for skin troubles.

Using creams, especially steroid creams, to tame the skin is suppressive, which means the condition will be pushed inward, and suppressed skin problems have the tendency to go to the lungs, causing problems like susceptibility to asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia.

Insect Repellent

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but most insect repellents are formulated with a soy oil base. I am not a fan of soy, because it blocks nutrient absorption, especially vitamin K which is essential in the metabolism of vitamin D and calcium so I don’t like the idea of exposing our skin to soy products. I have been known to use some of these sprays on clothing however.

For the skin, I really like Redi-Care by Keys. We have never ever been bit by a tick or any other critter, when we are diligent about application. My boys both use this lotion daily during certain seasons to avoid tick bites. It’s the most effective product I have ever used, quite honestly.

Shower filter

One of the best things you can do for your skin, hair (and body) is to filter your shower water. I personally love this shower filter by ProPur. It has awesome pressure and quite a few different spray settings. Very few shower filters reduce fluoride like this one does!

This shower head features new ProMax™ encapsulated multi-stage filter cartridge technology. Each stage is comprised of a unique proprietary formula of filtration media designed to target a specific group of contaminants. Helps protect your skin and hair from unhealthy effects of contaminants that may be in your water. Independent lab test (see at www.propurusa.com) shows the Propur® ProMax™ Shower Filter helps reduce over 200 contaminants including VOC’s, heavy metals, lead, pesticides, chloramines, chlorine, fluoride, herbicides, pharmaceuticals and odor. This shower filter for chlorine and fluoride meets WaterSense efficiency criteria.