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  1. Sneak Peak Into Sabrina’s Bathroom Cupboard

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    By Georgia’s Balanced Life

    When it comes to living a healthy and natural lifestyle Sabrina believes that what you put on your body is just as important as what you put in your body.

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    Dedicating her life to investigating what it means to live a healthy, natural and organic life, Sabrina is a big advocate of chemical-free, personal care products. This is because our skin is our largest organ, with roughly 60% of what we put on our skin being absorbed directly into our bloodstream and internal organs. (This alarmingly increases to 100% for fragrances and personal care products we use on our armpits and sacred lady bits).

    Studies have shown that the average woman uses 12 personal care products per day and this increases to 17 for the average teenage girl. This means that on any given day women can be exposed to over 100 different chemicals without even giving it a second thought. Ladies it’s time we stopped and understood the real price we are paying for our beauty.

    Take your mascara for example, this little baby that for most of us is essential for survival, has been found to use mercury as a preservative. That red lipstick you put on for a night on the town has been shown to have lead in it and that hairspray you used this morning, which you thought was a godsend, may contain carcinogenic ingredients.

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    Ere Perez Natural Almond Oil Mascara

    Majority of the conventional skin, hair and make-up products that are bought in shops today are often laden with toxic chemicals, allergens and irritants that can easily make their way into your body, blood and lymphatic system and wreck havoc on our hormones. For women these synthetic chemicals are especially dangerous as they mimic our beautiful hormone, oestrogen.

    We only have to look at the average age of puberty to see some of the scary effects these synthetic chemicals have on our own bodies. Since the 1920’s the average age for female puberty has declined by 5 years, with the average teenage girl now experiencing the onset of puberty at just 10.5 years old. This earlier exposure to oestrogen has been linked to depression, increased risky behaviour, diabetes, obesity, fertility issues and an increase in breast cancer. It is very scary when you realise that the very things that we as women use to make us feel more feminine, are in fact the very things that are costing us our femininity. Just when you thought men were off the hook (again) their not. Take the chemical phthalate for example. This toxic chemical is an endocrine disruptor and has significant consequences on men’s health, however it is still used in most conventional fragrances as it allows for the longevity of the perfumes scent. Phthalate has been shown to damage male sperm, alter sex and thyroid hormones and increase the feminization of baby boys.

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    Natural Essential Oils are a beautiful alternative to chemically laden perfume

    Sadly our obsession with personal care products has also meant that babies are now being born already exposed to toxic chemicals. In 2005 the Environmental Working Group published two studies that found an astounding 287 toxic chemicals within the umbilical cord of newborn babies. Of these chemicals, 217 were neurotoxins and 208 were known to cause birth defects or developmental delays. The media has largely ignored this study.

    So by now, if you are anything like myself, you are probably wondering why you had no idea about any of this!

    Unfortunately the cosmetic industry is self-regulating. Meaning that the very people who make our chemically laden personal care products are in fact the very people who determine if those products are safe for us to put in and on our bodies. Shockingly to this day no health studies or pre-market testing is required for cosmetic products to be put on the shelf. In fact it is the opposite. It is not until the products we use start to negatively impact our health do regulatory bodies begin to look at the ingredients used in our everyday trusted products. Until then it is simply a waiting game, with us being used as the human experiment.

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    Mukti uses all Australian natural certified ingredients

    So what can we do about it?

    Firstly do not feel overwhelmed by all of this. Whilst you may be tempted to throw out all of your conventional personal care products right this very second, this can often be expensive and unrealistic for most. When transitioning to chemical-free, certified organic products you should start with the products that have the highest level of toxic exposure, such as your deodorant which is 100% absorbed into your bloodstream, and then work your way backwards. The mobile phone app and book, Chemical Maze, is a great place to start when looking at the ingredients and toxicity of your products.

    Secondly start by educating yourself on unsafe ingredients and products and begin choosing chemical-free, certified organic alternatives. Please be wary though as it is a self-regulated industry a company can claim that their product is organic even if it contains only one natural ingredient out of the other hundred toxic chemicals.

    To know that your products are truly organic it needs to have the word “certified” in front of it.

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    Lastly the answer is simple, we all have a choice. Every day we have a choice about what we put in and on our bodies. If we choose to place a chemical burden on our body we are only sabotaging our own health, advancing our ageing and making our selves and our own children overweight, sick, emotional and infertile. Our choice is simply to switch to safer, certified organic products. We all have the power to do something now before it is too late. Companies will stop creating the products if we stop buying them. The power is in our hands.

    As a mother, Sabrina knows just how important it is to have a quick and simple beauty routine. With this is mind Sabrina’s daily beauty routine is very minimal.

    Sabrina’s Favourites:

    Shampoo and Conditioner: Mukti Organics or ACURE

    Hair Treatments: Certified organic coconut or avocado oil. (Massage onto the ends of damp hair, leave in over night).

    Face Cleanser: Mukti Organics Balancing Foaming Cleanser

    Body Wash & Exfoliators: Divine by Therese Kerr &  Eco By Sonia Driver

    Body Lotion: Moisturising Body Lotion by The Divine Company or Mokosh Coconut & Sandalwood Body Oil

    Deodorant: Axilla by Black Chicken Remedies

    Toothpaste: Divine by Therese KerrMint toothpaste by Miessence

    Tooth Whitening: WarPaint Natural Teeth Whitener

    Make-up: InikaYoung Blood & Jane Iredale (Mineral) & Karen Murrell 

    Perfume: Natural essential oils. Sabrina’s favourite scents are Ylang Ylang, Cedar, Patchouli, Frankincense, Sweet Orange and Jojoba.

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    Karen Murrell All Natural and Long Lasting Lipstick

    Sources:

    1. http://chemicalmaze.com/
    2. http://www.mindbodygreen.com/revitalize/video/why-beauty-products-are-toxic-what-you-can-do-about-it-heather-white
    3. Therese Kerr, The Divine Company, Presentation from the Rawspirations High Tea, June 2015.