Naughty parabens...

I am a big believer in making small changes. Small changes that, in turn, improve your health in a huge way. Imagine if you made 10 small, positive changes to your lifestyle how much improvement you would see in your overall wellbeing

I have been making a few small changes in our home. One of them is switching all our skin care products to Paraben Free. I think having a baby in the house has made me a lot more aware of not just what I put on her skin but also on mine, Simons and my step-children's skin. It has been surprisingly easy to find Paraben Free products. Yes they are a little more expensive than your mainstream brands of skin products but I believe it is money well spent and here is for why...

A Paraben is a chemical that is used to prevent the growth of microbes {bacteria causing disease or fermentation} in cosmetic products and can be absorbed through the skin, blood and digestive system. They can be found in shampoos, lotions, deodorants, scrubs, eye make-up remover.

Parabens are several distinct chemicals with a similar molecular structure. Four of these are used frequently in cosmetics: ethylparaben, butylparaben, methylparaben and propylparaben so if you see these on the ingredients label of your skin care products then it might be worth checking out a switch to something Paraben Free.

Parabens are known to disrupt hormone function, an effect linked to increased risk of breast cancer and reproductive toxicity. Parabens mimic estrogen by binding to estrogen receptors on cells. They also increase the expression of genes usually regulated by estradiol {a natural form of estrogen}; studies undertaken on cells show that these genes cause human breast cancer cells to grow and multiply. Parabens are also linked to cancer, reproductive toxicity, immunotoxicity, neurotoxicity and skin irritation. If you think about it, parabens are used to kill bacteria in water-based solutions so they must have a good level of toxicity to be able to do this.

Next time you are shopping for skin products make sure you read the ingredients label and avoid those that use Parabens. There are more and more skin care companies that now offer "Paraben-Free" and "Preservative-Free" products. All good health stores will stock a great range of Paraben and Presevative Free products and I have found that Chemist Warehouse carry quite a few ranges that won't break the bank. You could go one step further and look at using Organic products {I'll save Organic for another blog post}.

Here are some of the products we are now using in our home...

Gaia :: For Baby Frankie

 

Sukin :: smells amazing

Cetaphil & Redwin {& Dermaveen} :: all available from the supermarket

 

And I also switched all my cleaning products to non-toxic products when I fell pregnant. These are great products that you can get from the supermarket; Earth Choice and Earthwise. Both are plant based, contain no chlorine or solvents and come in recycled packaging.



 

This is definitely a small change worth making!