Last Saturday I went to a special event being held at the Rocky Mountain Soap Company. If you haven’t heard of them before, it’s important that you get acquainted. They’re basically a toxin-free movement – that just happens to make amazing products.

If you haven’t already noticed, I’m a fan of their stuff. Specially their lip balms and now, their body oil – coconut vanilla, hellooo?!

The primary reason for this event was to have Gillian Deacon, author of “There’s Lead in Your Lipstick”, talk about toxins in personal care products, how our society evolved to be so tolerant & dependent on chemicals and synthetic ingredients in body care, and what kinds of health risks we expose ourselves to when we use products with long chemical ingredient lists.

I think it’s important to bring awareness to all of this because, if you’re like most people, you see a shade of whatever product and buy it. No questions asked. But did you know that the long list of ingredients is barely scratching the surface at what’s actually in what you’re lathering on your face (or body)?

This is the stuff I personally look out for and I’m so glad Gillian was invited to talk about her research and book.

The pairing was perfect. A book all about the scary tactics that companies use to hide their “proprietary blends” from us, the consumers, put on by a company that’s figured it out.

Rocky Mountain Soap Co. will not only stick to real ingredients found in nature but they will completely stay away from ingredients that even sound synthetic – which makes creating their products even more challenging.

Did you know that phthalates are a complex mixture of dozens of chemicals and that they’re labeled as “fragrance” in your personal care products? Yeah. Go into your bathroom and grab whatever bottle you have there. It will most likely read “fragrance”. Since the company manufacturing that particular product isn’t required to divulge all of the ingredients making up that “fragrance”, we’re blindfolded.

With over 80,000 chemicals in use in our industry today, only a fraction of them have been tested for long term effects!

I know what you might be thinking, “but there’s no way I can stay away from all of that, Daisy“. Well, you can but it will be very difficult. I stick with products that work for me AND are on the toxin-free side – but if I can’t fully replace my products, I simply look minimize my exposure. Something you can do quite simply.

I simply prefer support companies that are standing up for what is, in fact, wrong. We’re not lab humans!

Oh, there’s a Rocky Mountain Soap Women’s Run happening on July 12th in Vancouver. The registration is to raise funds and awareness for Rethink Breast Cancer. It’s $60 to register for either the 5K or 10K AND you get $50 back to spend at their stores.