So you're nourishing your skin... what about your body?

By Melissa Thibodeau

I read somewhere that the average woman absorbs nearly 5 lbs of skincare and beauty products through her skin every year. It's a lot eh? Think of all the different products you apply on your face, on your body, on your hair, those first aid ointments, deodorants, perfume, nail polish, bug repellents... Oh and let's not forget laundry detergent and fabric softeners too!

The fact remains that skin is our largest organ and is completely permeable. It absorbs everything! This is supposed to be a good thing as our skin constantly regenerates itself and yes, can cure itself of all kinds of ailments, given the proper conditions...

You are all on this website because you already know that there are too many dangerous chemicals and mystery ingredients in the most popular (i.e.: the most widely marketed) skincare products around and want to learn about and use naturally nourishing products for your skin like the ones we make, right? But let me ask you this question: Are you nourishing your body too? If you are worried about what your skin absorbs, are you worried about what your body absorbs from the foods you eat? It's the same thing isn't it? I'm asking because just recently I came to the same conclusion while I was applying my new natural and mostly organic lotions and potions after a refreshing shower... My thought process went something like this:

"Wow, this is great... For the first time in my life, I actually know what all these listed ingredients are! From my creams, soaps, body butters, oils, sprays shampoo & conditioner and even my cosmetics... Cool! and I see that nothing is tested on animals too... Even cooler... But I'm confused... I'm super diligent about my routine now so why is my friggen skin still so dehydrated and sensitive?

Is it genetics? Now that I think about it, Mom had sensitive skin too.

Am I really drinking enough water? I guess I could crank that up a bit more, yeah. I know that coffee dehydrates skin too... But I only have 2 cups per day at the very most and I don't have it every day... Should I eliminate it completely? Boy that's going to be hard... I love my morning ritual.

I wonder if it's because I don't eat/drink organic enough... or maybe I don't wash my produce well enough... I need to take a second look at our grocery budget and see what I can do about this.

Is it the meat I eat? That can't be, everyone around me eats meat and their skin is fine... Hmm... mind you, I was a vegetarian for over 10 yrs and only began to eat meat again 2 years ago... 'round about the time my skin started to act up like this... Maybe the onslaught of beef, pork, lamb & bison was too much for my system to bear... I think I'm going to go back to being vegetarian again... I really haven't felt good about incorporating it back into my diet anyway. It felt wrong to care about animal testing and animal welfare and then turn around and eat 'em.

Am I missing something else? I need to make a list now and see what I could change.

Does any of this sound familiar? We can drive outselves batty wondering and worrying can't we? To say that we'll all die of cancer someday anyway is just a sad cop-out because we are smarter than that. We know better and should act accordingly, no? Doesn't every bit help?

Even if your skin is normal and you just want to take better care of yourself, why stop and skincare? I will always remember this nature show I watched when I was a teen where marine biologists were trying to figure out why Beluga whales were washing up on the St-Lawrence River shores (which was the precursor to the St-Laurence River cleanup). Autopsies were performed and the results reveiled that the Belugas' organs and tissue were so contaminated from the chemicals in the water and in the fish they ate that the researchers considered the Beluga carcasses to be toxic waste. Is that where we're heading?

What do you think?