How to choose clean products (& why it matters)

What’s the crunchiest thing you’ve ever done?

Mine was probably making my own sunscreen! (recipe to come) I NEVER thought I would be this girl, but I’ve become crazy conscious about what I’m putting on my skin and using in my home.

If Micaela of two years ago looked at me now, she would be like “why do you waste so much time on that? Does it even matter if there are a few toxic ingredients in my products?”

Considering the fact that you clicked on this post and you want to read about ditching toxins, you’re probably much further along than she was!

We’ll talk about the how in a minute, but first, let’s talk about the why for a quick sec. Okay?

Why do the products I use matter?

I used to assume that if a product was sold on a shelf in a store, it was safe for me to use. I also used to think the things I was breathing in or putting on my body didn’t really affect me.

If those are beliefs you hold, I seriously offer no judgment. You don’t know what you don’t know, right?

But, with our skin being our largest organ, what we put on our body is, in fact, taken into our bodies through the process of dermal absorption (as stated in this article, Skin Exposures and Effects).

Everything I put on my body is taken in, and it can either support my body or harm it. I want to be sure I’m doing everything in my power to stay healthy and free from toxic ingredients!

What are the side effects?

So maybe you’re saying “sure Micaela, I get it. What I breathe in and apply to my skin goes into my body. How does that affect me anyways?”

And like I said, that was the stance I took for a long time too! I recognized I wasn’t using the best products, but I didn’t think they could hurt me thaaaat badly.

According to what I’ve read on the Think Dirty app, the toxic chemicals found in many common household and personal care products can disrupt our endocrine system (which means our hormones and reproductive systems are thrown out of whack), cause skin irritation, disrupt our breathing, or over time, cause cancer.

In my experience, we don’t always realize how seriously these chemicals are affecting our bodies until we’re able to experience life without them for a little while.

How do I check?

Okay, so I know you don’t want to spend hours everyday reading labels and googling ingredients that you can’t even pronounce (nevermind spell!) to discern whether something is safe to use. Neither do I!

But - there’s an easy way!

There’s a free app I’ve come to love where you can search a product by name and brand and pull up all the details.

This app will give each product a rating on a scale of one to ten, and rate each ingredient as well. Then, you can click on an individual ingredient and learn possible side effects of that particular ingredient.

The Think Dirty app was a very important tool for me as I made decisions about what would stay and what would go!

Conclusion

Hopefully, you’ve learned a little bit about why the ingredients in our products matter so much and how to tell what should stay and what should go.

My final recommendation is this - don’t look up all your products in the same sitting! It can be incredibly overwhelming to learn what’s in our products.

The journey towards living naturally is a path full of lots of little baby steps. They may not seem to do much on their own, but all together, you’ll be turning around a year from now asking “who am I?” These changes don’t have to happen all at once, but please, start somewhere!

If you want to take action today, I recommend checking out this post: 5 steps towards a toxin-free home.