Back to the Body Shop

I have been looking for ways to live as chemical free as I possibly can. Sometimes it seems so overwhelmingly impossible -- we are surrounded by chemicals, but I have to try. I have already thrown out all my chemical filled cleaners and am only using vinegar and water to clean.

I have been on the hunt for "healthier" cosmetics and what a task that has been! Reading the ingredients label on cosmetics has dismayed me and brought me close to tears. I started with my moisturizer and with body lotion -- I am using emu oil as a facial moisturizer and organic coconut oil as a body lotion.

Finding a suitable deodorant has eluded me for a while until this week when a light bulb went off, and I decided to check out that a 1980s favorite -- the Body Shop. I bought all my skincare products from the Body Shop when it came to Malaysia in the mid 1980s. All the principles that Anita Roddick stood for appealed to me. The Body Shop didn't come to the US until 2001, and in that time I had turned to other cosmetics and I never went back to my Body Shop roots.

But this week as I was looking for paraben and aluminum free cosmetics, I ran across a Body Shop deodorant, that had mixed reviews but looked promising. I researched lotion, shampoo and conditioner and other products, and armed with my list, John and I headed to the Body Shop on Saturday.

I'm testing the deodorant today, but all the other products are going into my stocking ... so updates will come after Christmas. I had been worried about reviews that said that the deodorant did not last beyond 8 hours. Well, I put it on at 9 am and it is now 9 pm and I've had a normally active day and it is still going strong -- I don't smell bad! I dusted, hemmed two work trousers, hemmed a towel, mended a shirt, ironed my clothes for the week, and cooked dinner, and I can still smell the deodorant and not some sweaty person, so this one is a keeper.

Not everything in the Body Shop is chemical free -- you have to read the ingredients. That disappointed me -- whatever happened to being "natural"? I cannot imagine that Anita Roddick would have used any ingredient that had the possibility of contributing to giving a woman cancer. I am responsible for myself, so I have to take the initiative ... no one is doing it for me.