Natural Beauty

What's in your soap?  How about your moisturizer, or toner? Your foundation, power, concealer, blush, or eyeshadow, eyeliner, and mascara?  Lip gloss?  Body lotion, hand cream, or foot cream?  Anti-wrinkle cream, and deodorant??  Think of just how many things that we (women especially) apply to our skin everyday.  Does the average gal tend to think past the beauty effect of the product?  Sure the magic anti-cellulite, anti-aging serum may erase some fine lines and minimize her pores, but what else is it doing to her??  She may not stop to think about her skin absorbing every single impossible-to-pronounce synthetic ingredient that went in to that potion. All of it going into her body, just as surely as if she'd eaten her cold cream by the heaping spoonful.

We would all do well to continue our mindfulness past the food we are forking into our bodies.  Thankfully, it is growing increasingly common for the average consumer to read the labels on her food, and more importantly, move away from any food wearing a label altogether.  As we are more mindful to eat from the earth, we now need to teach ourselves to be even more mindful and to live from the earth.

Let's begin to view our skin almost like a sponge covering our whole bodies.  A sponge soaking up everything it touches (not just the plethora of things we dump on it daily, but also what is in our environments too).  Think back to the beginning of this post; make a mental note of the list of topical synthetic products that are a part of your daily routine.  All of that is going into your body.  

I won't get into some of the truly terrifying effects and origins of some common beauty product ingredients in this post- my intent is not to scare. I don't feel that we should make decisions and live our lives out of fear.  What I do believe is that when you know better, you do better.  Let's be aware, and begin to live more mindfully.