Therapeutic Organic Lavender Skin Care-Ultimate Moisture Cream - 2 oz - Average Rating: 23 total customer reviews...

All too often, people who are concerned about green living and being healthy, watching what they put into their bodies through proper eating, but they fail to pay much attention to what they are putting on their skin.

If you really want to live green, it’s important that you take the time to look at what’s in those skin care products you’re using, because they can be full of chemicals that you’d probably like to avoid. They can also have been made in ways you’re not comfortable with, such as being tested on animals.

• If you buy beauty products, look for some that are ‘cruelty free.’ While it ensures that they haven’t been tested on animals, it doesn’t ensure that the ingredients used to make them weren’t.
• If you buy products with the ‘organic’ label it means that there are some organic ingredients in it, but it doesn’t imply that they are all organic or that the product is chemical free.
• If you want chemical free skin care, buy products with the ‘natural’ label. These have all natural ingredients – but they may have been synthetically derived. Until the FDA regulates skin care products, reading all labels carefully will be necessary.

One way that you can also minimize the chemicals that you put on your face – and therefore into your body – is through minimizing your use of fragrances. Scents are chemicals, after all, and you can’t really tell which chemicals they are. Use things that are ‘fragrance free’ as much as possible. Also avoid hair dye as much as you can. Most women want to dye their hair, especially if they start to go gray early – but going a little longer between dye jobs is a great way to help protect yourself from dangerous chemicals. Cut back on the nail polish, since it often contains chemicals that are toxic to animals and have been linked to birth defects in humans. These chemicals hide under ‘fragrance’ and other similar labels. Shampoos – especially those for dandruff – and skin lighteners can have the same kinds of problems with nasty chemicals that are essentially hidden. Some will be in plain sight, but if you don’t realize they’re bad for you, you won’t notice them anyway, so know what’s unhealthy and check out an ingredient by researching it if you’re not sure what it is.

The bottom line is that it’s necessary to be very careful when you use skin care products. If you don’t, you’re essentially conducting a big experiment on yourself. Not everyone (including the companies that make these products) knows exactly what these products do or whether they are going to be a problem for people later on in life. Some of them are very bad for animals, so it would seem logical that they are bad for us, too. We are similar, after all. Spend some time reading labels and really take care with what you’re putting on your skin. It’s important to protect it as much as you can.