What You Put OnYour Skin Matters

Wombmates discuss the importance of clean ingredients

When I first got into skincare, I didn’t pay much attention to the ingredients on the back of the label. Frankly, I just cared about the results. If the product did what it said it would, I was happy. If a little worked a lot, then imagine what more could do?

Both those sentiments worked for a little while until they inevitably didn’t.

As I first started healing/caring for my skin, I thought of my skin as an inanimate object. Just a barrier between the outside and my insides. However, progress and results started to change once I started viewing my skin as a living, breathing, and replenishing organism.

The skin is the largest and heaviest organ of the human body. It undertakes vastly important daily activities such as protection, sensation, excretion, detoxification, and thermoregulation to name a few. What I didn’t know is that the skin absorbs what is put on it. Here’s why this matters. More often than not, most household toiletries are filled with hormone-disrupting chemicals. These chemicals seep into the skin (after application) and are then circulated throughout the entire body. Exposure to small amounts of these hormone-disrupting chemicals are not detrimental in small doses, it’s prolonged exposure that, in turn, leads to bioaccumulation of endocrine-disrupting chemicals that become stored in the body.

Taking this a step further.

Just like our digestive tracts, our skin too is composed of a microbiome. Our skin is made up of glands, pores, oils, and bacteria that help ensure its health. When we put harsh chemicals on our skin, we start stripping the skin’s microbiome and acid mantle, which inhibits it from functioning properly.

Once I learned the above I realized that a lot of the products I was using to care for my skin, were actually doing more damage than good. As I was unknowingly stripping my skin, my breakouts became even worse.

Bottom line: just because a product says it will deliver results- doesn’t mean it will. What matters is how it goes about achieving said results. Pay attention to the product ingredient label. If you don’t know a chemical, google it.

Environmental Working Group has a relatively solid smartphone application that allows you to scan the back of a product and pull up a report of the product’s formulation. The app does have some weaknesses. However, it’s a great starting point.

Did you know that the ink of tattoos has been known to stain the lymph nodes inside the body? In fact, this staining is how doctors and scientists discovered lymph nodes when studying human anatomy.

Here is a quick 90-Second Routine that we have been using for years.