Thanks to a request from my friend Kate, here are some pointers and a list of personal care products we use.
Unfortunately personal care product regulation is not nearly as strict as it is for food labeling, so pretty well much everyone and their uncle can use the word organic on a personal care item without it necessarily being true.
If you are are unsure about what products to use you can check out the safety of different items on the Environmental working group's skin deep database. http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/
This was really helpful for me, because we used to use Avalon Organics hair products and were super surprised to find on the database some of their products rated 6/10 (0 = no toxicity!!) All that while throwing around the word organic!!
For our soap (for the whole family) we use Val's Veggie soap which has 3 ingredients I believe and is made from olive oil. I even used this as shampoo for a long time and it worked fine! What is great about bar soap is that you save on all that plastic packaging!! There are other good soap companies out there too- just avoid fragrance (contains hormone disrupting pthalates), parabens (another nasty plastic ingredient used as a preservative). Basically if you can't pronounce the ingredients....
For handsoap we use Natureclean 100% natural hand soap. The mint one smells really good.
For our shampoo, we either use the bar soap or we were VERY happy to see that a canadian company green beaver now has certified organic shampoo and conditioner. Check out their website http://www.greenbeaver.com/ We get ours from superstore (Loblaws)
For our toothpaste we do use a floride based toothpaste once a day and a non-fluoride based toothpaste for the other brush (so far no complaints from the dentist- been about 3 years of this!).
We use a green beaver toothpaste (fluoride free) and Ecodent for the floride and sensitive tooth (rescueDent) toothpaste (Nat has sensitive teeth)- this is way more natural than sensodyne (which is bright green incidentally).
For our deodorant this was a whole journey!!! To be honest I tried a tons of natural deodorants (aluminum free) and none of them worked well, I was pretty smelly for about a year. That was until I found soapwalla deodorant cream which works AWESOME for both Nat and me!! The only days I get a little BO is when I forget to use it!!! The other thing I love about it is that I can recycle the little tub (not a ton of plastic parts that can't be recycled). http://www.soapwallakitchen.com/ We order ours through an online store (that is close by so I can pick it up!) it is fairly expensive but totally worth it and lasts a longtime.
For makeup there are some really great options- I go for the cheaper stuff right now (Physician's formula certified organic line) and I'm not thrilled with the quality, but when our debts will be paid I will most likely upgrade! They have a decent tinted moisturizer.
We use soap instead of shaving cream, we use a little of our organic shampoo instead of bubble bath (a couple squirts under the running water does the trick).
I actually use a little baking soda every day as a gentle natural exfoliator for my face. It works really well. I have a little bit in a little tub and use it in the shower. This is much cheaper and healthier alternative to many face washes!
Hopefully this helps and challenges some of you to pitch your toxic skincare products!!!
