call it body discrimination, but not all areas of our skin receive the same attention. Smooth, dewy
skin epitomizes youth, beauty, and health, yet many of us concentrate our efforts on the skin from the
neck up. We would happily spend ten minutes washing, scrubbing, and nurturing our face and styling
our hair, but all we do for the major portion of our skin—that is, the skin covering our arms, legs, and
torso—is slapping on some moisturizer, with some occasional scrubbing with a loofah or exfoliating
shower cream.
To truly pamper yourself, you should give as much thought to your body care as you do to your
face. There is absolutely no excuse for you to neglect any part of your body: in health food stores,
drugstores, and glittering counters of department stores, not to mention online, you will find a scrub,
toner, and lotion for every nook and cranny. But how much thought do we put into buying them? Do
we buy them for real results, or are we swayed by the airbrushed advertising? As you read the next
few pages, you will learn how to choose the best products to use during a shower, a soothing and
relaxing bath, cellulite massage treatments, hair removal, and nail care sessions, and they should be
part of your green beauty routine.
Body care products are perhaps the most populated area of the green beauty industry. On a good
day inWhole Foods Market or in your local health food store, you will find shower gels and soaps in
every imaginable scent, and endless varieties of body lotions, scrubs, and massage oils. These days,
many spas are offering toluene- and formaldehyde-free manicures and organic wax hair removals.
Many conventional cosmetic manufacturers are reformulating their body products, removing sodium
laureth/lauryl sulfates, ethoxylated ingredients, and synthetic fragrances. Sadly, the makers of many
“natural” beauty products too often cut corners by adding chemical junk to their products. We gladly
buy them to soak, scrub, moisturize, fight unsightly dimples, and wash away our emotional woes. So
how do you make informed decisions and buy green beauty products that truly deliver results? Read
on!
Green Shower
Body cleansers, no matter if they are packed in an elegant glass bottle or a minimalist tube made of
corn, all function in a very simple way. They cleanse the skin using surfactants, chemicals that lift up
the oil, dead skin cells, and daily body grime, and then mix with water and wash away. Some
cleansers leave a faint layer of oil on the skin. Some have antibacterial properties. Some contain
vitamins, amino acids, fruit acids, plant extracts, and exfoliating granules. All these ingredients may
offer excellent benefits in a face or body lotion, but they have little chance to make any difference
when used in a body wash. They are simply washed off too quickly. All you want to pay for in a body
wash, green or not, is a surfactant mix and some gentle emollients. Save your money for a decent body
moisturizer, and let the body wash do its job, which is cleansing your body.
A green cleanser should use plant-derived cleansing agents, derived from olives, coconuts, or
sugar beets without the use of sulfates. Many so-called natural shower gels still use sodium myreth
sulfate and lauramide MEA (JASON Organics), sodium laureth sulfate (Bain de-luxe, Korres Natural
Products), sodium lauryl sulfate, cocoamide MEA, paraben preservatives (Kiss My Face), or
polyethylene glycols and tromethamine (Nature’s Gate Organics) and therefore cannot be
recommended due to their contamination with the carcinogen 1,4-Dioxane (refer to Chapter 2). To