When your body is exposed to normal levels of everyday toxins, your body has the wisdom to excrete these toxins via the skin, urine, and feces. The skin is actually the body’s largest organ of elimination and releases toxins through oil and sweat via the pores. It’s important to know that this is a 2 way street – anything applied topically on the skin will be absorbed into the blood stream. Unfortunately many of the things that women apply to their skin everyday actually contains toxins that wreak havoc in the body. Oftentimes these are in such high levels that the body cannot effectively detoxify them and the toxins accumulate and contribute to dis-ease. Here is a helpful (though a bit graphic) image, showing the variety of chemicals in products that women are exposed to every day.
Thankfully, there are responsible companies stepping up and creating alternatives to these toxic products. These “healthy” cosmetics are often available at health food stores or “green” salons. I recommend you check your products on this EWG website to see whether they are safe or not. Cosmetics are NOT regulated and the word “natural” on the label means nothing!