Dr. Mercola April 05 2008 81,812 views
ladies please stop using anything on your faces and bodies ; men hate colored,scented,refurbished faces and bodies ; period.
Dear Sobber, I hope, fot the most part, what you say is true.
I am a woman but it distresses me to see people reconfiguring
their bodies in such a drastic way. I understand if you are
disfigured... but to erase some things that are your genetic
background sends a wrong message to our chidren... what you
are intrinsicly is ugly and you need to change it to something
else. And the breast implants, to me, are so blatently ugly
and obvious. Why would you want to attract someone who is
attracted to your huge chest ? What if they ended up leaking
and/or disfiguring you... would he stay with you once they're
gone from that or a mastectomy ? It's scary to think we've
been bewitched by such shallow things.
Sobber, its cute how you assume most women use "anything" on our faces and bodies for men. I moisturize my skin so it doesn't itch, stretch, or cause me discomfort. I scent it with lavender because it soothes me. Not because I'm trying to impress men who aren't worth impressing, especially when they assume all my hard work of slathering on this and that is for their enjoyment.
Use what you will or won't on your body, and leave others to their own. And don't flatter yourself, its not for you.
Liberyinmo, this is great that you're making your own. I'd be careful making my own lye as you then don't have a standardised strength and, as you know, soapmaking can be dangerous. But I'm sure you're well informed. I'm surprised you have to add anything to THICKEN soap - unless your lye is potassium hydroxide (used for making liquid soap) instead of the more usual sodium hydroxide.
Wow snowburn5! You sound very angry! I have to agree with Sobber. Most women I know wear makeup to impress either men or women.
Use Dr. Bronner's. It is USDA certified organic. I use it for everything. Washing hair, face, body. I even use it for cleaning. It is the only soap that I have found that is great for my children's sensitive skin. The almond-hemp 18-1 is great for hard wood floors, cleaning sinks, drains, stains in clothing, my carpet, and I even use it on my dog. Plus, you'll get a kick out of reading the label on the entire bottle.
Dr. Bronner's is Fair Trade too. My favorite home cleaning soap is the Sal Suds. Balsalm Fir Oil makes it smell awesome (not overwhelming or fake pine-sol like at all) and it work greats as a dish soap and a hand soap too.
Did you know that the FDA allows up to 10ppm dioxane in foods? While Dr. Mercola states that eating it may be "sort of" safer than absorbing it through the skin, I have to say that the OCA really ought to blow the lid off the exposure to this in processed foods, too.
Dr. Bronner's is the greatest. Why would anyone use anything else?
I love Dr. Bronner's! The almond is my favourite.... Don't use the peppermint soap 'down there'! =)
Dr.Bronner's has simply the best products. I have been using it for everything. Sal suds is wonderful for all house cleaning- from dishes to laundry. The soaps are mild and wonderful even for newborns
Sal Suds contains sodium lauryl sulfate.
My husband and I have used Dr. Bonner's bar soap for years. He has sensitive skin so he uses the Baby soap bar while I love the Lemon soap bar. We tried Dr. Bonner's liquid soaps and shampoo but didn't like their odor. However, their bar soaps fragrances are subtle and very pleasant. As far as we're concerned there's nothing like Dr. Bonner's bar soap and we tried just about everything. Also, Burt's Bees products are very good. Their lip balm is the best, as are their lip stains.
Also, thanks to Dr. Mercola and others for outing Jason's and Kiss my Face, I was always uncomfortable with their attention to marketing. They're everywhere.
First of all, "everything on your skin" does NOT get "directly" absorbed into your bloodstream. Or even reach your bloodstream at all. Most things do NOT. That is the purpose of skin, it's a barrier. Anyone here with a first year Biology course knows that. Most molecules are far too large to be absorbed through skin. Think about it...if that was the case, yes, that ONE time of touching body lotion with chemicals would have put you in the hospital or killed you. Things like Nicotine patches are *designed* to work the way they do by Pharmaceutical companies...I doubt anyone who makes shampoo wants to do the same. They want to keep you as a customer, not kill you.
People are breathing in toxic fumes from inside and outside every day. Is your paint in your home organic? Your flooring? Your sheets? Your clothing?
While there is nothing wrong with wanting to buy only organic beauty products, I personally think that food is where you should put your money instead. Grow your own if you can.
Sensationalist claims that are UNPOVEN and FALSE make Americans look dumb. That's the last thing Americans need...information from a "alternative" source doesn't make it correct either.
I agree with Mercola on many things, and like him a lot, but he's got to stop making unproven claims in order for most of us with education to take him seriously. He's so right on the money with some things, so out there with others. I wish he'd walk a straighter line so he gets the respect he deserves.
Curious26, thanks for this. I get a bit tired of this "Everything gets absorbed" nonsense as well.
However, some things DO get absorbed, among them nasties like sodium laurel sulphate; it does have a molecular size small enough to get through the skin, and it accumulates in vital organs. It's in mainstream 'soaps' (even many solid bars that customers believe to be soap - they're NOT soap, they're hardened detergents!), shower gels, shampoos and toothpastes. It's even in some popular moisturisers - heaven knows why! - and some medicines.
sounds like to me you went to the same school as the doctors who have love affairs with the bid pharma. Being ignorant is not going to get you anywhere, I am sure your education has tought you that your sj=kin is your largest organ and what you would not eat you should not put on your skin.
Curious26, I agree with everything you said, including your Dr. Mercola opinion. I also have decided to spend my money on quality food, a water purifier & some supplements, rather than organic body products, because they are so expensive & I feel I achieve more with everything else I'm doing for my health.
Also, food products on the skin can breed bacteria, so their appplication can have a down side.
I saw a programme on TV lstt week that was studying the possible reason for the reduction in sperm count and increased numbers of deformed sperm in men over the past 50 years. There was a strong inference to the presence of toxic chemicals in waterways and personal care products in particular. They did an experiment where they put body cream that was known to contain pthalates in it, over the bodies of men and tetsed to see if and when the pthalates were present in the blood stream. They were there within one hour!
Whether or not personal care items actually make it into the blood steam or not they go somewhere. Creams that are absorbed are going to be absorbed into the tissues and the blood stream if particles are small enough and many of the nasty ones are. These chemicals being present in the tissues of the body are just as much of a concern as those in the blood stream.
Some parts of the body absorb more than others too, like the scalp and underarms that have large hair follicles. As an example a 2004 UK study detected traces of five parabens in the breast cancer tumours of 19 out of 20 women studied. This small study does not prove a causal relationship between parabens and breast cancer, but it is important because it detected the presence of intact parabens -- unaltered by the body’s metabolism -- an indication of the chemicals’ ability to penetrate skin and remain in breast tissue.
It's seriously not worth the risk.
The only guarantee that personal care products are safe is that they are certifed organic to food standards. This is because organic cosmetic standards are not worth the paper they are written on. Currently Miessence from ONE Group provides the world's most extensive range of cetrifed organic personal care items and cosmetics AND they are CO to food standards.
You could not have said it better. Dr. Mercola is certainly right on the money with some things and way out in left field with others. Seaotter
Kiss My Face Olive Oil Soap only lists: Soponified Olive Oil, water and Sodium Chloride. So I am guessing that it is pretty pure - as far as soaps go, tho I don't have a clue what Sodium Chloride is.
Evihcra, I try to not be quick to judge but... how can you be interested in nutrition and health and NOT know that sodium chloride is common table salt?
I can't help wondering why a manufacturer would put that in a soap. From the ingredients listed, it IS actually soap and not a detergent (saponified means the oil, which is acid, has been neutralised by a strong alkaline, usually sodium hydroxide lye, leaving a salt dissolved in water, which is soap).
While some of kiss may Face has some lower amounts of these things they are not to the limit of regular soaps etc.They are very minmal compared to many other brands. Use the Sudz line if you want a quality product without much of the carcegins. The whitening toothpaste they have is one of the most natural one I have found. And not all of the products have them in there, they are also derived from natural sources unlike the manmade counterparts of other brands.
While I agree that you need to stay as natural as possible, I do believe that the amounts in KMF is extremely low comapared to otherr brands.
I went on the web site for miessence. It's all nice and everything, but the prices are outrageous! Why does certified organic have to cost so much? To me it's a total rip off. There has to be a company out there that offers certified organic skin care products at a price that won't knock your socks off! Anybody out there know of one???
jgeno, the reason MiEssence products are so grossly inflated in price is because it's an MLM - a multi level marketing company. I am surprised that the moderators here have not deleted all this spamming for business! In early days, MLMs offered tiny discounts to distributors and small bonusses for moving quite a lot of product. These days, in order to attract distributors, all these companies keep offering bigger and better bonusses.
The ONE group (MiEssence) now gives (I think) 30% discount (= mark-up) to frontline distributors and fairly hefty bonusses for recruiting active (= regularly ordering) distributors under you, plus large bonusses for the big, successful players. They are the same players who have made big money in all other MLMs; this is the way you build your market with the MLM model.
MiEssence products are just ludicrous in price. £28 (over $50 or AU$60) is just ridiculous for a shampoo; you're better off not washing your hair at all, except with plain water - look up some sites about this.
If that's too radical, do some searches for safe products. There are better alternatives at a tiny fraction of the price: e.g. Mercola's own Natural Skin Butter at around a QUARTER the price of a MiEssence equivalent; you can use it as a cleanser, as well.
To LadyPam: My guess is that why the MiEssence posts are not deleted is because they ARE after all organic and despite the price, are convenient to order even from abroad, anyway that's not such a major factor but when it comes to ingredients, they are additive-free. However, I would be happy if there were more suggestions from readers from other (not MLM) companies, like someone here just mentioned Terressentials.com and the prices there seem to be quite reasonable! And they seem to ship to foreign countries too so I might just order some stuff from them.