Avoid Parabens in your skin care products. Natural skin care products are safer and more effective
Have you been to the supermarket lately and looked at some of the products on the shelves? Have you seen products advertised as “paraben free”? Today we want to talk about parabens in face skin care products and why you should avoid them.
You see there’s a bit of a controversy about the use of parabens in products which go on your skin. Products like soaps, shampoos, personal and beauty products, cosmetics and skin care products. Many of these products, if you look on the label, will have some form of paraben listed there.
The term Parabens refer to a class of chemicals which are used in many products, including even some foods, as a preservative. Using these chemicals as a preservative works extremely well and allows the companies which manufacture the products to extend the shelf life of the product.
However there is a serious debate about the safety the class of chemicals called parabens when used on the skin of human beings.
The major reason they are used in skin care products is that parabens are extremely cheap to manufacture. For the same reason many other questionable ingredients are found in skin care products and many others, such as mineral oil. There are safe and natural alternatives but these are usually much more expensive.
So why is there a controversy about the use of parabens in skin care products? It’s because there is research showing that parabens, when used on human beings, may well cause cancer. Here is a summary of studies linking parabens to breast cancer.
One study has tested women with breast cancer and found parabens in the cancer tissue of around 90 percent of those tested. Now of course this doesn’t mean that the chemical has caused the breast cancer, but it’s certainly something of some concern.
Studies also suggest that chemical preservatives what parabens can mimic some of the actions of a female hormone named oestrogen. Again it is not clearly proven, but is worrying.
If you look on the label of many products, including skin care products, you will see ingredients such as these in many cases. Methylparaben, Ethylparaben and Propylparaben are just some of the many used in so many of our personal products.
Here’s a link to the Cosmetic Safety Database concerning one particular chemical called Sodium Methylparaben, another paraben. This links it to a range of health concerns including neurotoxicity, or risks to the brain, endocrine disruption, risks of cancer and immunotoxicity and more.
Perhaps now you’re beginning to see why there is such a powerful move towards much more natural skin care products that do not contain preservatives such as parabens and which do not contain so many of the other chemical ingredients used in so many of the skin care products that you may well have in your bathroom cabinet right now.
And it explains why there are now products specifically advertising themselves as “paraben free”.
The good news is that there are small companies manufacturing extremely high quality natural skin care products that do not contain any parabens or any of the other chemical ingredients which have been linked to various health concerns.
These companies, one in particular, have a stated philosophy of using only ingredients which are known to be safe and effective for people to use on their skin.
And there are some excellent ingredients which are well known to produce high quality skin care outcomes, however they are rarely used by the major skin care companies because they are more expensive. Olive oil, macadamia nut oil and Shea butter are just a few examples, but there are many more.
This small skin care company produces highly effective and safe natural skin care products, but doesn’t advertise them because it doesn’t have the budget to compete with the big players, or if it did advertise the cost of it’s products would be too high. For that reason they offer a 90 day for money back guarantee on all their products so that anyone considering using them can try for themselves risk free.
So if you’ve been using big brand name anti aging skin care products have a look on the label and see what is listed there. Parabens may well be there, as well as many other potentially harmful ingredients. Read the rest of this entry