It has taken me about 8 years to detoxify my life, and I’m still not done. We live in a world where we don’t make or grow or produce the majority of the things in our lives anymore. A lot of times, we don’t even know where products come from. Quick question – where does your deodorant come from? Where in the world is it made, and what are the ingredients?
Changing everything in your life to detoxify can be challenging, time consuming, and costly. I started small. I cut pop and processed food out of my life. Slowly, I changed over almost all of my food products to organic. I started reading labels and educating myself on the ingredients in products. I’ve invested time and money in buying sustainable, locally raised meat. Changing out all my beauty, skin care, and household products has been increasingly easier, as there is now a huge market for cleaner, safer, better products. This is a process, and it takes time.
If changing over your current products to detoxify by using cleaner products, I want to give you some great ideas for products I love.
- Truce, $10.49 – I have worked many a markets with Diann Peart. She is passionate, funny, smart, and loves pastry and espresso, so basically one of the best people ever. I use her cleaning products in my home and in my commercial kitchen. The ingredients are simple and quality, plus they actually work. A portion of every All-Purpose Cleaner is donated to Phoenix Children’s Hospital, and the packaging is meant to be reused. It’s also made of PET, which is the easiest and most frequently recycled plastic.
- Four Cow Farm Products, various pricing – my mom found these products, and I love them. Their Nappy Cream, $16.90, cleared up a little touch of diaper rash on my daughter in the matter of a day – way better than the other diaper cream I was using. I love that they are organic and all the ingredients are food grade. The Baby Wash, $13.90+, is a little different as it doesn’t really lather, but if you are using other natural soaps, you’ll also find this to be the case. I love the Baby Lotion, $14.90+, so much, that I sometimes use it for my dry cracked skin.
- Vapour Organic Beauty, AER Next-Level Deodorant, $24 – I am obsessed with this deodorant! It smells great and so far it works great. I will keep testing it through the summer months to see if that continues. Right before I had my daughter, I knew I wanted to switch to natural deodorant. It is SO HARD! Some of them don’t work well at all, and let me tell you I’ve tried a lot of them. I finally found one I liked – Schmidt’s – and then I had a horrible reaction to the baking soda in it. Schmidt’s then came out with their sensitive line, which worked great, but I then found out they sold out to a larger company not known for their commitment to natural products. The hunt began again. I went to one of my absolute favorite shops here in Arizona, Citrine Natural Beauty. If you are into natural beauty products, or wanting to make the switch, I suggest starting here. It’s where I found my latest fav, Vapour Organic Beauty, AER Next-Level Deodorant. I love the scents – my favorite is the Ginger Grapefruit. It rolls on smooth and doesn’t leave anything gross on my shirt. So far, it’s been working great. My husband has recently come over to the natural deodorant party and is using the Agent Nateur Holi(man) No5 Deodorant, $21. It smells great and so far it has been working for him. We will really see how they work as the summer approaches. It’s expensive for deodorant. I get that. It has taken me a long time to get away from my $4 deodorant, and to get my hubs away from his as well. I would rather pay more for a cleaner product and feel safer about what is in it, than to put something on my body from who knows where, made with who knows what.
- Seventh Generation Natural Hand Wash, $2.99 – I use the Think Dirty app a lot to check products. While writing this piece I checked the score of this hand wash, and it has changed from a 3 to a 4, which means it’s now out of the green zone (0-3 – means that product does not contain any ingredients which have a documented potential negative health impact) and into the yellow (4-7 – product’s ingredients have potential moderate negative long term health effects). I try to keep my products as much in the 0-3 range as I can, especially for a product like hand wash that I use so much during the day. This is an example of how things change. Perhaps the formula changed or perhaps the app was able to better identify the ingredients. Either way, looks like I’ll be searching for a new hand wash. Maybe I’ll try my hand at making my own.
- Kjaer Weis Foundation, $68 (refills $40) – Pre-baby I used Shu Uemura or Nars Foundation. I am not 21 anymore and I need quality foundation, preferably one that has legit ingredients. I love this foundation by Kjaer Weis. It covers well, feels great on my skin, and doesn’t cause any breakouts.
Start where you can and don’t compare yourself to others, because it’s hard to navigate to truly detoxify our lives. It’s a process and takes time.
To start, check out the Think Dirty app to see where your products currently fall. Try to find alternatives that fall into your budget, or see if you can even make some of the products yourself. I have friends that make their own laundry soap. It’s definitely something I am considering doing in the future.
For beauty products, I love following Organic Beauty Lover on Instagram. She is constantly testing products, and has a space on her website for others to review their favorite products. It is a wealth of knowledge and information from real people trying the products.
If you are in Phoenix, definitely check out Citrine Natural Beauty at the Biltmore. I love that we have such an awesome store locally to get these products.
Bottom line, do your research and find what works for you.
