Your skin is the largest organ of your body and it absorbs everything that you put on it. That’s why in this article I’m sharing top chemical ingredients to never put on your skin. I mean never!
You might be surprised to learn that what you put on to your body is just as important as what you put into your body.
Table of Contents
Top Skin Care Ingredients to Avoid
1. Parabens. They are preservatives that keep products on the shelf a lot longer, which is great for companies but not so great for you. Parabens are known as hormone disruptors and 75 to 90 percent of cosmetics contain paraben.
These toxic preservatives mimic estrogen and have been found in breast cancer tissue.
What’s my advice? Read all labels when you’re shopping and don’t buy cosmetics or personal care products that have parabens.
If you read methylparaben, butylparaben or propylparaben or anything paraben on the label. Don’t buy it. Seriously, just don’t buy it, just don’t. Put it down garbage.
2. Fragrances. I get it. We all want to smell nice but if you’re using products that have fragrance, they might actually contain parabens also. Fragrances are trade secrets so we don’t really know what’s in them.
According to the Environmental Working Group, most fragrances have at least 14 chemicals that aren’t disclosed on the label.
Many of these toxic ingredients cause hormone disruption. What’s even scarier is that 80 percent of the chemicals used have not been tested for human safety.
Just embrace your natural scent or choose products with essential oils. There’s vanilla, lavender, citrus. I’m sure that you’ll find a scent that you like.
3. Mineral oil. On beauty labels, no mineral oil is the new no parabens. I’m guessing you wouldn’t put gasoline on your skin, so why would you use mineral oil.
Mineral oil is an inexpensive by-product of refining a crude oil to make gasoline. Despite the soft feeling of putting mineral oil on your skin, it blocks pores.
Since the skin is the largest organ in the body, guess what happens when you block pores. Air, water, toxins, nothing can get out through your skin, so toxins build up in the body.
I’m not trying to scare you, but when toxins aren’t eliminated and they build up in the body, they can lead to a lot of health problems.
Instead of this ingredient, opt for coconut oil, olive oil, cocoa butter, shea butter. There are so many awesome natural options that are available on the market. Anything that comes from nature is better than mineral oil.
4. Polyethylene glycol, also known as PEG. It is an ingredient that you definitely want to avoid. If you’re exercising, eating healthy and trying to keep your skin healthy, the last thing you want to be putting into your body is PEG.
PEG needs to go into the trashcan, no discussions. That’s it.
Did you know that PEG is found in many spray-on oven cleaners? Why in the world would a person want to put this ingredient on their skin?
5. Sodium lauryl or sodium laureth sulfate, also known as SLS. This ingredient is a mutagen and mutagens can change the genetic material found in your cells.
The worst part is that your body can’t even eliminate SLS. It can linger in your body for a really long time and cost hormonal problems and reproductive issues.
This toxic ingredient simply has no business in your body.
Your skin needs nutrients, not chemicals!
There you have it just a few ingredients to watch for next time you’re shopping for personal care products or cosmetics.
Although these ingredients may not cause any issues in small amounts, we’re applying these products every single day. So think about the effect and the impact after five years, ten years or even fifty years.
Obviously they not a good idea! So just choose natural. Natural is so much better.
Skincare Products to Avoid
You may be surprised that there are certain things that you may think are good for your face but are not.
Here are some other things that you should never put on your face. And I bet you’re gonna be surprised as some of the things that I have on my top five list of things to avoid on your face.
4. Bar soap. It is not good to wash your face with bar soap. It is very drying to your skin and it often contains sodium lauryl sulfate. This is a substance that causes the soap to lather really well.
Unfortunately that same lathering substance can really dry your skin. Use bar soap on your body if you want but keep it away from your face.
3. The next thing you’ve got to keep away from your face is petroleum jelly. You may have had it applied by your mother or your grandmother onto your face or your lips.
It has been seen for a long time as the ultimate natural moisturizer. Well take a look at what it is. Jelly isn’t so bad, but petroleum!
It was discovered at the bottom of petroleum barrels and this is where it comes from. This is not good for your skin. It can also clog your pores, it’s very occlusive.
If you’ve got any history of any type of acne, it is not good to put on your skin. So stay away from petroleum jelly over your whole body. There are some natural ones made of beeswax that I would go with instead of petroleum.
2. The other thing you want to avoid is body moisturizer. It is great for your body but not so great for your face and like petroleum jelly, body moisturiser can clog your pores. It can cause you to break out.
You can go to the store and you can buy body moisturiser in these big bottles for just a few dollars. As long as it doesn’t contain harmful ingredients, which unfortunately a lot of them do, then it’s not a bad idea to use that for your body.
But for your face, stick with a good facial moisturizer. Get one made with natural organic ingredients, which does not clog your pores and has antioxidants in it.
1. Rubbing alcohol is the last thing to avoid. Astringent or toner often contains alcohol in it and it gives this same feeling as rubbing alcohol on your skin.
That feeling is a nice squeaky-clean colder type of a feel and it feels good to put it on your skin. But what it does is it rubs off all of the oils of your skin.
There are people who have real oily skin, they have acne issues, excess sebum and they think that using rubbing alcohol or astringent can get rid of that oil. But what happens is it gets rid of the oil temporarily but then your skin realizes that it’s missing oil and it creates even more oil in response.
What can happen is you can get into this vicious cycle where if you’ve got oily skin and you’re using rubbing alcohol or astringent, or toners with alcohol, that your skin actually gets more and more oily.
So stay away from rubbing alcohol and avoid astringent and toners that are filled with alcohol.
Best ingredients for oily skin
Rebecca is a licensed aesthetician and certified laser technician with almost 15 years experience in the dermatology. Her life-long passion is making people look good and happy.