Is your bathroom poisoning you?

If you are like most of us, you start your morning by heading to your bathroom and get ready to face the day. Let’s talk about what happens when you perform your rituals and how you might be adversely affecting your health and the health of your family. You might not know it, but the soaps, lotions, creams, toothpaste, deodorants, sprays, shampoos, and even the laundry soaps you use on your towels might be the reasons you have less than  perfect health.

Let’s talk about what you might normally do, and what we can do to solve the problem and keep you healthy. If you shave, man or women, you probably start by putting some hot water on you skin to soften the whiskers, then apply shaving cream. The shaving cream lathers up and we think that is a good thing. However the shaving cream is loaded with toxic chemicals. One of the very bad chemicals in most shaving creams is sodium lauryl sulfate. This is also found in most soap and helps to make creams and soaps foam up. It can cause skin irritation, dry skin, and can cause vision problems if it gets in the eyes or is absorbed into the skin. If you use hot water when shaving, the hot water will open up the pores of you skin and give the chemicals an open route into your body. Sodium lauryl sulfate exposure can also lead to headache, difficulty breathing and hair loss. And if you cut yourself shaving, now the chemicals have a clear path directly into your blood system.

Your morning shower (unless you have a filter on your water system); will expose you to a myriad of chemicals, including chlorine. The steam from you shower opens up your pores and allows access to the body as well as dilating your lungs. Chlorine is used in swimming pools to kill bacteria. Our bodies have about 100% more bacterial cells than human cells. Bacteria help us digest our food,  help protect our skin from outside invaders, and help in our immune system function, as well as many other functions. By exposing ourselves to chlorine, many good bacteria are destroyed and the adverse effects on our health can be far reaching. Women using tampons or pads are also exposing themselves to chlorine. These products are usually bleached and bleach contains chlorine.

After your shave and shower, you proceed to brush your teeth. If you ever took the time to read the side of a commercial tube of toothpaste, you will see a warning, something to the effect “Warning, harmful if swallowing more then amount used to normally brush teeth. If swallowed, call poison control”. There are chemicals in tooth paste that are harmful if swallowed, specifically fluoride which can cause nerve damage and tooth damage, sodium lauryl sulfate, dyes and sweeteners. The type of fluoride used in tooth paste, sodium fluoride, is in the same group of poisons as arsenic and cyanide. It can affect the brain function and I have seen children, when they stop using fluorinated tooth pastes, be able to focus better in school. It has also been linked to bone and oral cancers. If that isn’t bad enough, a slick marketing ploy is to not use sweeteners, but use artificial sweeteners such as aspartame or saccharine. The FDA has 92 potential side effects listed from aspartame ingestion, the number one side effect is headaches and one of the side effects…no kidding…is death! Saccharine used to have printed on its label a warning that this produce has been linked to cancer in animals. If a product states right on it’s label that it has been linked to cancer, believe it.

You now put on your antiperspirant, which contains aluminum. Research has shown there may be a link between aluminum build up in the brain and Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological conditions. Aluminum clogs up our pores and prevents us from sweating. Sweating is one of the ways our body rids itself of toxins. The fragrance in antiperspirants can cause allergic reactions, as well as irritating your skin.

So, what can we do? The good news is that there are alternative products that work just as well, and in many cases better, and they are safe. Safe products are available at most health food stores or on line. The non toxic shave creams may not foam up as well as commercial shave creams, but do a better job at removing whiskers without dry out your skin. You can also use castile soap, not only to clean your body, but as a shave cream. Castile soap is made with plant oils and removes most dirt as well as commercial soap. It is so safe, you can even eat it. I would not recommend this, I tasted it once and it is not very tasty. If it is going to be absorbed into you skin, you want to make sure it will not make you sick if you eat it, either way it gets into your body and once it gets in it should not do damage. There are several tooth pastes that do not have fluoride, artificial sweeteners or sodium lauryl sulfate. Use deodorant instead of antiperspirant. Deodorants do not contain aluminum. You might have to try a few different brands to find on that works for you, but it is worth it to protect your health. Feminine hygiene products can be purchased that are not treated with bleach.  A water filter can be attached to your shower head to filter out chlorine, but a better choice would be to get a whole house water filter, this way all the water you drink, bath in, wash clothes in and clean you fruits and veggies in is safe. Clothes soaps and dish washing soaps that contain no toxic chemicals and as a bonus are usually hypoallergenic can also be purchased. They work very well and are just as easy to use as their commercial counterparts.  Many times I have seen patients that have unexplained rashes, allergies and fatigue respond very well when they discontinue commercial clothes soaps and switch to a more natural soap.

By making some simple changes in our usual personal hygiene products you might be preventing health problems, not only now but in the future.

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Last Update: 03/10/08 10:56:40 AM
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