Yucky Chemicals in my Toothpaste

Back in the spring, I started trying to make some healthy changes to my life. I started a test-run of eating vegan and liked what I saw and felt and am still going strong in that department (you can read about my vegan adventures here.)

I also was hoping to rid my medicine cabinet, make-up bag, and cleaning supply cupboard of all things containing chemicals and replace them with natural products or home-made natural concoctions. I am someone who hates waste and is also very frugal, so I figured that I should use up what I have and replace them as they were used up. There are a few problems with that line of thinking. First, I have some products that have been on my shelves for possibly up to 20 years! How quickly I thought I would use those up, I am not certain. Another thing hampering the usage is...the usage. I don't use cleaning or beauty products very often, so even though I have a mountain of them, they don't really get much use. I could possibly take another 20 years just to try and use *some* of these babies up. The last thing is that I keep reading more and more bad things about the ingredients that are in many of these products and I just can't tolerate using them anymore.

So, some time over the Christmas break I am just going to offer up almost all of them on freecycle. I will save only what my non-natural lovin' honey thinks he needs. I have already started putting some things in boxes- let's see if I miss them.

Two things prompted me to finally take the leap.

1. I am so sick of clutter! I came to a breaking point in this. I took pictures of my cluttered house. These are my "before" pictures. I plan on sharing them with you as soon as I feel I can also post some "progress" pictures. I am imagining a life without bottles and tubes and jars of stuff that I rarely or never use. Sigh. Bliss. Love.

2. One change I made early on was a switch to a more natural toothpaste. A couple of months ago, I sort of slipped back into using our normal toothpaste again (which my family is still using). I got two horrible canker sores in a row. I thought this was a little odd, so I googled "causes of canker sores". Although no one is certain what causes canker sores, it is suspected that one cause is a reaction in some people to sodium lauryl sulfate, a common ingredient in many toothpastes. Since I had switched from a toothpaste without, to a toothpaste containing sadium lauryl sulfate in the time I had the canker sores, this was the obvious guess for me. I switched back to my natural toothpaste and haven't had another canker sore.

However, around the time I started getting canker sores, I also got a rash that is a lot like acne behind my ears and on the back of my neck. If I had a reaction to sodium lauryl sulfate in my toothpaste, then it would be pretty likely that I would also have a reaction to the same ingredient in my shampoo! I am just in the process of switching out my shampoo. This was just the motivation I needed, though, to get rid of all these chemicals from my house.

Thank you chemicals for making yourselves known and showing me that using you up does more harm to me than I am comfortable with. It is best we go our separate ways.