Natural translations: how to decide your health and beauty priorities - Innerbeauty: new strategies for vibrant living

If you read last month's column ("Natural Translations," p. 48), yon understand some of the problems surrounding synthetic body care products. Following up on that, this month I want to provide you with information on synthetic body care ingredients, plus tell you about my professional techniques for achieving a holiday makeup look using natural cosmetics.

Scents and Sensibilities

Personal care choices depend on your priorities: Are you motivated by the desire to use something truly natural? Products that don't harm the environment or your skin?

The sharply increasing sales of natural and organic beauty products and their outspoken users--from celebrities to fashionistas to everyday consumers--is evidence that the pursuit of natural has finally taken consumers into a new era of curiosity about what's really in a product--and what's not.

It's no longer enough for a manufacturer to say that a product "contains" botanicals such as aloe or green tea. Everything does today. The only way for you to make a Italy conscious choice is to remain unmoved by packaging and look at the ingredients list.

Super-Foaming Action

Making products that foam without synthetics is an ongoing challenge for manufacturers.

Foaming agents such as sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) are frequently included in otherwise-natural cosmetics. Often described as "derived from coconuts," SLS and related sulfates are, by the US Department of Agriculture's definition, synthetic. So if natural is your goal, these aren't for you.

Alternative detergents such as decyl polyglucose, coco glucoside (reacted with glucose, not sulfuric acid) and olivoil glutinate are milder on the skin, create less pollution during processing and break down easily in the environment. For example, simple castile soap, like Dr. Bronner's, was found to be the most environmentally friendly detergent according to the Swedish Nature Conservancy.

Priority Check: Do you really need a lot of foaming action in shampoos and facial cleansers? A tight feeling on your face or scalp is sign of dry skin. There are plenty of natural cleansers that use essential oils, mild foaming agents such as quillaya bark or a touch of castile, or other alternative detergents.

Intoxicating Smells

The word "fragrance" on American products can indicate 50-200 different unstated chemicals because US regulations don't require individual chemicals used in fragrances to be listed on labels. Fragrance chemicals include neurotoxins, carcinogens and pollutants, which explains why they are a top-ranking skin irritant, and perhaps why fragrance allergies are on the rise in the United States.

In conventional skin and hair products, fragrance is impossible to avoid since it is allowed even in products labeled "fragrance-free." But you can avoid synthetic chemicals by using products that contain essential oil-based scents, or products that are certified organic.

Priority Check: The last thing we need is to further pollute ourselves or our environment. Try scenting your bath, your skin and your life with essential oil products.

Shelf Life

Manufacturers who say natural products are impossible to produce are insisting on long shelf life, which allows them to warehouse products indefinitely and better compete in the mass market. But indefinite shelf life means the product is likely to include "unnatural" ingredients.

For example, using synthetic emollients such as mineral oil and Frazzled to Festive in Five Minutes petrolatum instead of cold-pressed, natural oils may save manufacturers the headache of putting a biologically active substance that could spoil into the bottle. Keep in mind that mineral oil can clog your pores.

Synthetic preservatives are another problem. TEA, DEA, MEA and EDTA--or their long full names, which end in "amine," such as triethanolamine--form carcinogens called nitrosamines. PEG is often contaminated with dioxane. Quaternium-15 and imidazolidinyl urea can both release formaldehyde. And the parabens (including methyl-and propyl-paraben)--considered the safest synthetic preservatives--have recently been shown in studies to have mild estrogenic effects.

You can avoid these by using products preserved with citrus seed extract--though some people may also be sensitive to citrus seed.

Priority Cheek: Don't sacrifice your health for the sake of using products with a long shelf life. Revive your primal instincts, and rely on your own nose and sensibilities to throw out a naturally preserved product that occasionally goes bad before it is used up.

Choice Is Beautiful

Shopping for products at the health food store doesn't guarantee you will make a natural choice, hut it dramatically increases that likelihood. It's great to have a choice between synthetic sunscreen ingredients--many of which have been found to accumulate in breast tissue--and safe ones such as zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, as well as a choice between products preserved with parabens and products preserved with citrus seed extract. Most reputable natural products rarely contain mineral oil or synthetic fragrances or colors.