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Your bathroom is full of unnecessary junk.

Here’s the truth: half of the stuff in your personal care products is unnecessary. The “split-end repair” in your conditioner is silicone. The “clarifying” in your shampoo is sulfates.

This subject isn’t just for girls, or even just for people who care about how their body wash smells. The parabens in your shampoo can cause birth defects. The aluminum in your deodorant can give you breast cancer. The formaldehyde can give you cancer. These are problems that can affect anyone regardless of gender or age.

OK, it’s not that drastic. Don’t throw out all of your bottles and jars just yet. Chemicals aren’t always dangerous. Artificial additives aren’t always dangerous. When I start to talk about this subject, many people make hippy jokes, or say, “Water is a chemical!” I’d like to begin by emphasizing that many of the chemicals I’d like to touch on aren’t going to cause immediate harm. Or, at least they haven’t been proven to yet. At the least, many chemicals haven’t been in use long enough to show side effects. So, the point I offer, is why take the risk for a dollar or two cheaper?

Fortunately, it isn’t rocket science to avoid harmful ingredients. I’m no expert, but after some short research over time, I can look at an ingredients list and tell you it’s integrity.

I’d like to offer a short breakdown of my dealbreakers.

- Parabens: Parabens are a naturally-occurring preservative that has been used for hundreds of years and have proven very effective at preventing bacterial growth. However, studies have shown that parabens are a possible carcinogen, or endocrine disruptor, aka reproductive disruption. I think most of us would like to play it safe, and most products fortunately advertise as paraben-free.

- Silicones: Silicones are a plasticy polimer included in countless moisturizers and hair care products. All silicones do is coat your hair in their plasticy coating to create a smooth feeling. Over time, they build up, making hair feel heavy and dry. They keep moisture out and in skincare, can clog pores and cause acne. No thanks!

- Sulfates: Sulfates are a surfactant - AKA they lift oil and buildup easily. Sulfates aren’t bad for everyone. However, if you have dry skin, dry hair, thin hair, hair loss, eczema, just to name a few, you’ll want to avoid them. Personally, sulfates make my hair extremely dry immediately. Many products use silicones to cover up the drying effect. Sulfates in shampoo lift silicone residue, silicone in conditioner seals the drying effect of sulfates, and the cycle continues.

- Phalates: Phalates are another endocrine disruptor/hormone mimicking chemical. Fortunately, in my experience, phalates are advertised to be excluded from most personal care products. Still good to know, and I still always look for this fact on the label!

My personal frustration with this particular subject is the fact that it doesn’t take a lot to get these risky chemicals out of our products. According to Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, Canada has banned hundreds, the EU thousands, of chemicals from personal care products that are known to cause respiratory, reproductive, neurological, or any bodily harm whatsoever. Connecticut even passed a statement telling stores to simply “follow the rules of the EU”, which isn’t even a law or seriously enforced. Here’s a harrowing fact; the U.S. has only banned or restricted 11. Doesn’t that bug you? It bugs me! You don’t hear Canadians or citizens of the EU complaining about their selection, so why can’t we do the same?

Let us touch on the demon of personal care products, and you’ll understand the answer to that question: Fragrance. I believe the ingredient of fragrance tells an interesting story regarding the truth behind ingredient lists. When one reads fragrance on a bottle, they’re probably assuming its actually fragrance. Maybe some essential oils, natural scents? Instead, fragrance is used as a hidden umbrella term that companies use to get around the FDAs ingredient requirement, which details that companies must include full ingredient lists. If there are some ingredients companies don’t want you to see, they can legally hide it by including it under the term “fragrance”. This includes PHALATES! Did I mention phalates have been linked to many hazardous health conditions, such as reduced sperm count, liver and breast cancers, reproductive malformation, and diabetes?! Yikes! I saved that fact to really emphasize that companies are trying to hide this from you! Another example of an ingredient that can be hidden is various types of alcohol, which while isn’t quite a harmful ingredient, is a drying ingredient that people with dry skin may want to avoid. Those two, along with over 3,000 other chemicals. Yes, 3,000 chemicals hiding under one single word.

An easy way to avoid these chemicals is a simple “fragrance-free”, or honestly just “insert-chemical-here free” which are usually at the forefront of most products because its good for advertising! In my personal opinion, if corporate greed means better quality products, that’s fine by me! It’s the same logic behind the greater accessibility of organic and vegan foods, which is a whole other blog post in itself! It’s one that I probably would write if I was vegan or generally cared! That is a lie, I do care what I eat, but that isn’t what this is about.

This relates to a subject that I think we all should have been doing for a long time, which is applicable to many things, not just personal care. Knowing what you are putting on your skin and ingesting takes a small amount of research! A good deal of the information in here is off the top of my head (yes, I did check all of my definitive statements before making them). The amount of information on this subject is endless but concise, concise because the people behind publicizing this information want everyone to know! As they should, because companies nowadays are only going to advertise what they don’t have, not what they do. This is another habit I want to impose onto you, the reader, to practice. If you find a product advertises “No sulfates or parabens,” go ahead and double check for phalates and fragrance. And vise versa. Obviously. It’s a lot more likely than you think and is the biggest thing that bothers me about the corporate greed I was talking about. It doesn’t take a genius to notice the plethora of buzzwords shoved down consumers throats on every single product they ever own ever. This is a subject that took me such a small amount of time to become fluent in, so I try to encourage anyone who will listen to me to take my advice.

If it isn’t apparent, none of these ingredients are necessary! There are easy alternatives that aren’t expensive to produce. Plus, many products that don’t include these mentioned chemicals have more good stuff, including more responsibly sourced ingredients (there’s those buzz words coming in!). I’ve come to notice when I’m shopping that the prices for better products are indistinguishable from their chemically-troubling counterparts. This is because many of these ingredients are not only ineffective, but not even a cheaper alternative anymore. For example, Triclosan was a common ingredient in many soaps, toothpastes, detergents, and toys. It’s also one of the few ingredients restricted by the FDA. This is because it causes birth defects and reproductive harm. So why was it found in 3 out of 4 people’s bodies up to its ban? This ingredient was used in virtually every personal care product available!

I want to touch on that bolded sentence: found in people’s bodies. Yes, that is why this is important. A lot of people think; I’m just washing my hair with it, I’m not eating it or drinking it. Our skin absorbs everything we put on it. This really should make sense and should really matter to you. Think about everything that touches your skin for extended periods on any given day. Body wash. Lotion. Shampoo. Conditioner. Aftershave. Leave-in. Hair gels. The list goes on. This is why it’s important to be somewhat aware of what is in those products. It is all absorbed into your body, and trackingly so. As stated, there are tests that can track the chemicals absorbed into your body. Personally, I don’t want to have enough of anything artificial in my body that it can be traced.

A resource that has greatly helped me in this journey of product understanding is the Environmental Working Group. Not only does EWG have countless information regarding the information I’ve discussed here, with entire well-cited articles surrounding any single aspect included here, but they also have a handy-dandy database that gives you a quick summary of any product you own. You can type in any product and get an easy to understand rating, score, and explanation about all of the ingredients in it. Even if you don’t care about this subject in particular, it can still be interesting to see! They even have an app with an easy barcode scanner and are always adding products to their database.