The Benefits of Buying Organic Products

The American who can make it through the day without using at least one (and most likely many) health or beauty care products is a rare being. We all use products including soap, shampoo, lotion, makeup, hair dye, hair care products, skin care lines and more. The problem with these daily cleaning and preening rituals we have developed is that many of our favorite products are to blame, at the very least, for allergies and sensitive skin and, at the very worst, for more serious skin and health conditions.

So what are we to do? Certainly, refraining from bathing and grooming ourselves is not an option but neither is the price of illness. To our rescue comes the green industry, businesses dedicated to giving us organic and healthful alternatives to our daily needs, including all the skin care, health care, and hair care products we could hope for.

If you exhibit any of the following symptoms, then you should consider throwing out your traditional products and opting for their organic counterparts:

+ Acne
+ Eczema
+ Rosacea
+ Dry skin
+ Sensitive skin
+ Hives
+ Dermatitis
+ Itching
+ Redness
+ Stinging
+ Blisters

Whether or not your products are the cause of skin problems, choosing organic products as replacements will help you decrease and possibly even eliminate your symptoms entirely.

What Ingredients Make Up Traditional Skin Care Products?

It is not only what is in regular, drugstore skin care products that makes them harmful to our skin; it is also what is not in them. There are ‘balancing ingredients’ included in some products as mitigating factors and without them, a product may create skin problems. That is, though some products may have potentially harmful ingredients, they may also contain balancing ingredients whose sole purpose is to block the negative effects of the harmful ingredients.

There are a number of problems with this Band-Aid method of product creation. In the end, more chemicals are never a good idea, even if one is meant to neutralize another. And should the neutralization be altered in turn, by time or temperature, creating a new, more harmful chemistry or even multiplying the harm of the original toxin, then the situation is only worsened by the additional chemical.

Don’t think that because your products have the word ‘hypoallergenic’ on the label that you’re protected from harmful ingredients. There is no legal definition for this term, no requirement for products that claim the label. So the bottle of lotion with ‘hypoallergenic’ stamped across the front may have the exact same ingredients in the exact same qualities as the bottle next to it. Even if the company means, for example, that there are no synthetic fragrances included (a single synthetic fragrance can have more than 600 synthetic chemicals in its make up), the word can be so loosely defined that it can’t be depended upon.

What Do Organic Products Have To Offer?

Though these too vary by company and product, it is often as important to realize what is not included in organic products as well as what is. For example, organic products contain no synthetic fragrances; formaldehyde-based preservatives like quaternium-15, imidazolidinyl urea, and diazolidinyl urea to name a few; or detergents like sodium lauryl sulfate that weaken the skin surface and weaken the skin’s immune system.

Instead, in organic skin care, hair care, and beauty products you will find that antioxidants that are beneficial to your skin are used as preservatives including vitamin C, vitamin E, and citrus seed extract. The key ingredients and bases for lotions, shampoos, and cosmetics are usually unaltered from their natural state, allowing you to rest easy with the knowledge that your skin and hair are protected from the chemicals that could lead to unsightly skin disorders, allergies, and worse.

Simply changing your facial cleanser or body soap to begin can bring about great change in the texture and appearance of your skin. Experiment with different companies and formulations until you find the perfect set of organic products to suit the needs of you and your family.