Why Natural & Organic?
Using organic body products to greatly improve your skin and overall health.
If you are not currently using organic body products then do you really know what you are putting on your skin? Petroleum by-products, alcohol, parabens, phthalates, sulfates, synthetic fragrances and colors? Most body products are made from chemical fillers that give the feel of moisture, but in actuality, do nothing for your skin. The things we put on our skin are absorbed into the body 10X faster than what we eat. These chemicals are accumulating in our bodies and contributing to the overall increase in disease. Using Natural Escapes organic body products will help you achieve much improved overall health.
Natural Escapes organic body products do not contain any petroleum by-products, animal by-products, drying alcohols, parabens, sulfates, or synthetic colors or fragrances making them a much gentler and healthier choice.
Your skin is the largest organ and needs nourishment from the large toxic burden it must bear. We need to be conscientious about what we put on our skin so that the products we use don't add to our toxic burden. Skin needs vitamins, minerals, micro-nutrients, and many other compounds that are bountiful in nature. Chemical additives are plentiful in commercial body care products today due to their inexpensive nature and ability to mimic moisture, however, it is time to reconsider what we trustingly put on our bodies and how these chemicals affect our overall health. It's time to consider the benefits of organic body products.
So what are some of the major problems in most skin care products on shelves today?
Chemical fillers
Sulfates- A group of cleaning ingredients more correctly known as "alkyl sulfates".
Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS)
Concentrations as low as 0.5% could cause irritation and concentrations of 10-30% caused skin corrosion and severe irritation. SLS has a "degenerative effect on the cell membranes because of its protein denaturing properties. High levels of skin penetration may occur at even low use concentration." Studies have indicated that sodium lauryl sulfate enters and maintains residual levels in the heart, liver, lungs and brain from skin contact. Still other research has indicated sodium lauryl sulfate may be damaging to the immune system, especially within the skin. Skin layers may separate and inflame due to its protein denaturing properties. Although sodium lauryl sulfate is not carcinogenic in experimental studies it has been shown that it causes severe epidermal changes in the area it is applied. Additional studies have found that sodium lauryl sulfate is heavily deposited on the skin surface and in the hair follicles. Damage to the hair follicle could result from such deposition. Organic body products should not contain these chemicals.
Sodium laureth sulfate (SLES)
This is the most commonly used "sulfate" in beauty products. Although sodium laureth sulfate is somewhat less irritating than SLS, it cannot be metabolized by the liver and its effects are therefore much longer-lasting.
Ammonium lauryl sulfate
A relative of SLS, ammonium lauryl sulfate is used in some so called "SLS-free" shampoos - however it is also a strong irritant like SLS.
Parabens- A class of chemicals widely used as preservatives in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries.
The EPA reported that the chemical preservatives called parabens—methyl, propyl, butyl and ethyl (alkyl-p-hydroxybenzoates)—displayed estrogenic activity in several tests, meaning that these chemicals mimic the body’s own hormones and can have endocrine-disrupting action when they are rubbed into the body or washed down the drain into drinking water. These disruptors interfere with the body’s endocrine system: the hypothalamus, ovaries, and thyroid—virtually every system in the body. Endocrine disruptors are transported into the body, daily, via absorption through the skin and hair follicles when using personal care products.
Continual introduction of these benzoates (parabens) into sewage treatment systems and directly to recreational waters from the skin leads to the question of risk to aquatic organisms. Scientists found other endocrine-disrupting body care chemicals in the bodies of fish that humans are eating, and in human breast milk.
"It is a known medical fact that estrogen stimulates breast cancer" and that "anything absorbed through the skin may be as high as 10 times the concentration of an oral dose." (Think how nicotine and birth control/hormone patches work—the chemicals are absorbed through the skin.) In one study, a paraben was injected under the skin and was found to have an "estrogenic response on uterine tissues." Scientists observing these harmful effects on the uterus remarked that "it is suggested that the safety in use of these chemicals should be reassessed."
Synthetic Fragrances
Phthalates, a family of chemical plasticizers that are used in personal care products to moisturize skin and as a solvent, are almost synonymous with fragrance. Phthalates have been shown to cause birth defects, reproductive impairments, and liver damage in lab animals.
By dismantling the unique chemical compound of an essential oil, chemists re-assemble a "Frankenstein" fragrance. 95% of the chemicals used in synthetic fragrances are derived from petroleum and include benzene derivatives, aldehydes and many other known toxins and synthesizers capable of causing cancer, birth defects, central nervous system disorders and allergic reactions.
The EPA reported that synthetic fragrances were shown to cause "possible mutagenic and genotoxic effects." Synthetic fragrances have also been shown to contain hormone disruptors which are linked to abnormal cell reproduction and may result in tumor growth. Natural Escapes organic body products do not use synthetic fragrances.
Why Use Essential Oils?
One of the most beneficial ingredients Natural Escapes organic body products promote are essential oils. Essential oils in organic body products are what provide the primary benefit to using them. Essential oils are liquids generally distilled by steam or water from the leaves, stems, flowers, bark, roots or other elements of a plant. These oils are often referred to as the "life force" of plants. They contain unique and varied therapeutic properties and are highly concentrated. They are abundant in organic body products.
The chemical composition and aroma of essential oils can provide valuable psychological and physical therapeutic benefits. These benefits are usually achieved through methods including inhalation and application of the diluted oil to the skin.
Essential oils have many therapeutic properties when applied topically, such as anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-mocrobial and anti-fungal properties. They also contain a multitude of healing compounds, such as vitamins, phyto-nutrients, and many other constituents found in organic body products.
Why Organic body products?
Human Health
Laboratory studies show that pesticides can cause health problems, such as birth defects, nerve damage, cancer, and other effects that might occur over a long period of time. These effects depend on how toxic the pesticide is and how much of it is consumed.
Pesticides can enter the human body through inhalation of aerosols, dust and vapor that contain them; through oral exposure by consuming food and water; and through dermal exposure by contact of pesticides with skin (using products with non-organic ingredients). Pesticides are sprayed onto food, especially fruits and vegetables, they secrete into soils and groundwater which can end up in drinking water, and pesticide spray can drift and pollute the air.
Every human contains a percentage of pesticides found in fat samples in their body. Children are most susceptible and sensitive to pesticides due to their small size and underdevelopment.
Studies show that infants are exposed to hundreds of harmful chemicals in utero. In fact, our nation is now reaping the results of four generations of exposure to agricultural and industrial chemicals, whose safety was deemed on adult tolerance levels, not on children’s.
According to the National Academy of Science, "neurologic and behavioral effects may result from low-level exposure to pesticides." Numerous studies show that pesticides can adversely affect the nervous system, increase the risk of cancer, and decrease fertility.
Exposure to pesticides can range from mild skin irritation to birth defects, tumors, genetic changes, blood and nerve disorders, endocrine disruption, and even coma or death. Herbicides have widely variable toxicity. In addition to acute toxicity from high exposures there is concern of possible carcinogenicity as well as other long-term problems such as contributing to Parkinson's disease. Using organic body products will help to limit these dangerous chemicals eliminating them from the products you put on your skin.
Environment
The use of pesticides decreases the general biodiversity in the soil, resulting in poor soil health and the need for chemical sprays in order to grow crops. Mono-cropping (only growing one crop) and chemical fertilizer dependency has taken a toll with a loss of top soil estimated at a cost of $40 billion per year in the U.S. Add to this an equally disturbing loss of micro nutrients and minerals in fruits and vegetables. Feeding the soil with organic matter instead of ammonia and other synthetic fertilizers has proven to increase nutrients in produce, with higher levels of vitamins and minerals found in organic crops.
Industrial agriculture doesn’t singularly pollute farmland and farm workers; it also wreaks havoc on the environment downstream. Pesticide drift affects non-farm communities with odorless and invisible poisons. Synthetic fertilizer drifting downstream is the main culprit for dead zones in delicate ocean environments, such as the Gulf of Mexico, where its dead zone is now larger than 22,000 square kilometers, an area larger than New Jersey.
Toxic chemicals are contaminating groundwater on every inhabited continent, endangering the world’s most valuable supplies of freshwater. Since 1998, farmers in China’s Yunnan Province have eliminated their use of fungicides while doubling rice yields by planting more diverse varieties of the grain. Meanwhile, several water utilities in Germany now pay farmers to switch to organic operations because moving farmers to organic practices costs less than removing farm chemicals from water supplies.
Wildlife
Widespread application of pesticides can eliminate food sources that certain types of animals need, causing the animals to relocate, change their diet, or starve. Animals may be poisoned by pesticide residues that remain on food after spraying, for example when wild animals enter sprayed fields or nearby areas shortly after spraying.
There are many other ways wildlife is affected by pesticides and herbicides. Pesticides can kill bees and are strongly implicated in pollinator decline, the loss of species that pollinate plants, including through the mechanism of Colony Collapse Disorder, in which worker bees from a beehive or Wester honey bee colony abruptly disappear. Application of pesticides to crops that are in bloom can kill honeybees, which act as pollinators. The USDA and USFWS estimate that US farmers lose at least $200 million a year from reduced crop pollination because pesticides applied to fields eliminate about a fifth of honeybee colonies in the US and harm an additional 15%.
Poisoning from pesticides can travel up the food chain; for example, birds can be harmed when they eat insects and worms that have consumed pesticides. Some pesticides can accumulate, or build up to toxic levels in the bodies of organisms that consume them. The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that 72 million birds are killed by pesticides in the United States each year. Bald eagles are common examples of non-target organisms that are impacted by pesticide use, as their main food sources are plant eating wildlife.
In the past several decades, decline in amphibian populations has been occurring all over the world, for unexplained reasons which are thought to be varied but of which pesticides may be a large part. Mixtures of multiple pesticides appear to have a cumulative toxic effect on frogs. A Canadian study showed that exposing tadpoles to pesticides at levels that are likely to be found in habitats near fields sprayed with the chemical kills the tadpoles and causes behavioral and growth abnormalities. The herbicide atrazine, which is the #1 pesticide used in the US and is banned in many European countries, has been shown to turn male frogs into hermaphrodites, decreasing their ability to reproduce.
Using skin products with natural ingredients and organic body products is the only seal of assurance against chemical pesticides, herbicides, GMO and other modern, lab-produced chemicals, and the only assurance of regulatory inspections and scrutiny to ensure strict adherence to organic standards. Buying organic body products not only supports healthy ecosystems, the overall environment and wildlife, it reduces your exposure to toxic chemicals and contributes to overall optimum health.
