Book review - Skin Deep

So, I promised a review of this book - Skin Deep by Pat Thomas in my last post. I picked it up in my local library recently and got through it easily in a day or so.

At first I found it a little dry and uninteresting - so many sentences started with a complicated sounding chemical which my eyes just skimmed over, and ended with a slighly paranoid and flaky sounding 'danger'. To be honest, I am not hugely fussed if a chemical 'might' cause a rash, or if there's 'some' evidence that links it tenuously to cancer, or alzheimers or whatever.

I certainly don't want cancer or alzheimers, or skin rashes really I guess. But I live in a city, I breathe pollution on the train every day, I get second hand smoke on the streets, I will come across cleaning chemicals in my office and in shops and so on, there will be a whole host of things I breathe in blissfully unaware, not to mention what I eat (if burnt toast really is a carcinogen, I'm probably far more at risk from that than moisturiser!). In short, there is just too much of that stuff, and the evidence is too flimsy for me to start getting really strict about ruling things out on those grounds. Whilst I think in general it's probably going to be a good thing to avoid them and the information about the lack of safety regulations for this stuff is something I wasn't aware of, I think you risk getting obsessive and overwhelmed if you start trying to avoid everything that's been 'linked' to illness/ill health.

That said, as I read on I did start to appreciate the book more and more. What it helped me do was really think about what it was that I was buying when I buy cosmetics. It breaks down the types of ingredients that are in everyday cosmetic products and explains how they work. When it is all demystified like this it is easy to see what is behind the advertising and lovely images/words which is 70% of why I buy a product probably, and see it for what it really is - a load of different chemicals put together in a combination that the customer will want to buy.

There are a huge number of ingredients which go into products not to perform the task they are meant to do but to make the product easier to transport, or to give it more shelf-life, or to make it's consistency or look more appealing to the consumer. All of these ingredients can have some kind of effect on wherever you are putting them.

And a lot of the ingredients that are the 'active' ingredients are achieving something to make you keep buying them but not necessarily to achieve the results you think they're achieving (e.g. AHAs make the upper layer of your skin thinner, so whilst you temporarily might look smoother, it facilitates water loss from your skin actually making it more dehydrated and dryer. Also, I can't remember the details but there was a whole section on why some anti-aging ingredients probably actually increase wrinkles long-term).

There are also a huge number of ingredients made from mined minerals or from petroleum. Whilst we are all aware of the fossil fuels element of car use, and energy use, I doubt many of us think about the fossil fuels helping us to achieve dewy looking skin or peacock-coloured eyelids. This is a huge motivator for me to stay off the stuff.

The book also provides a selection of recipes or ideas for simpler, more natural-ingredient based alternatives. Recipes for toothpaste, mouthwash, simple moisturisers, make-up removers, facials, bath soaks for sore skin... The only one I have tried so far was a massive success - (I'll do a separate post I think to highlight it) and I'm looking forward to trying a few other new homemade products when I get the chance. I love the fact that you know what goes in to it, I love the whole fun mixing-up bit of it, and I love the fact that it liberates you from that relationship with the big companies and the ad-men that you enter into every time you buy a commercial product with all its shiny promises.

I would have liked more background on the cosmetics and toiletries industries - why things developed the way they did, that kind of thing - but that wasn't what the book was trying to do. It tries - and I think succeeds - to clarify and demystify toiletries and cosmetics in terms of what they are really made up of, focusing mostly on the health angle, and a little on the environmental impact. Overall, I wouldn't say it's an essential book to have on your shelf, but it was easy-to-read, straightforward, not overly preachy and pretty useful, so I would recommend it. For me it has definitely been a good starting point at least, and I am going to copy out some recipes and ideas to try out so watch this space for those...

Exfoliation Part 1 - The Bathroom

I must admit to being a bit of a hoarder... I like to think I have got better over time (I no longer have keep all my cinema tickets and the collection of 'nice' plastic bags has been seriously slimmed...) but there's no denying the ridiculous amount of stuff I call my own.

So, when I came across Jess' exfoliation concept on makeundermylife it was just the motivation I'd been looking for to start getting more serious about The Constantly and Sneakily Accummulating Stuff. From time to time I enter a phase of nest-tidying urges and attempt to purge from this area or that, but it's never been that consistent. So, from this week onwards I'm going to try and find something (or things) to get rid of every week.


The really nice thing about this is that as well as de-cluttering, it really makes me think about how I will buy in the future and what alternatives there might be to the stuff I have.

There's also the potential to put redundant and idle objects to a better use or to discover exciting new ways to repurpose/upcycle things.

So, I started in the bathroom. (I've tried to give a feel for our bathroom in the little montage above). It's kind of plain, and the shelf is normally strewn with all kinds of bits and pieces.

For the first time in the 14 months since we moved in I took everything out of my side of the cupboard and off the shelf and off the side of the bath and considered whether I wanted to keep it. I think of myself as pretty low-maintenance so I was surprised at the amount of serums and lotions and creams and colours I had collected.

When I thought about it I realised there were two weaknesses - buying 'pretty' things as a comfort when feeling stressed or ugly or bored of myself, to which there could be much better responses; and 'free' things on magazines. I'm such a sucker for 'free' - nowadays I try and see it as them foisting something I don't need on me, rather than an exciting 'gift'. It's not really free after all!

Anyway, the results of my pruning were a tidier shelf (above!) and this little collection of stuff (below)... In the top right we have a Body Spray I never used and have no idea why I bought. It smells gross. I chucked the lot down the sink, rinsed the bottle and have put it to use as a mister for my palm tree (apparently this will stop it getting brown ends on its leaves!)

Next to that is some eye make-up remover. I've cut down a lot on eye make-up and use oil if I need to remove it so I just don't use this anymore.

Then there's some shimmery moisturiser which was just an awful idea.

And the foot scrub was ineffective and just made the bath messy.

Cheap hair colour made absolutely zero difference, and now I am henna-ing I really have no use for it.

In the bottom row we have: Hair serum - not really appropriate for fine flat hair like mine and felt like glue!; eye cream - I think I was feeling old and vain; earrings which I loved but have gone all manky with the cover peeling off; two really bad nail varnishes; and one of the 6 wash bags I've accummulated (FREE stuff again!!!!).

At the moment, most of this is still sitting in a kind of 'out-box' whilst I work out what to do with it as I'm loathe to just chuck it in the bin. In searching for alternate uses, I came across this brilliant site - http://www.recyclethis.co.uk/ - which discusses all kinds of ways to reuse or recycle all sorts of things - although sadly not sparkly moisturiser or eye cream. Would it be good for shining shoes I wonder? Would eye make-up remover clean dirt off kitchen cupboards? What could do with being painted horrible nail varnish pink? Should I rinse the moisturiser bottle and fill with raspberry coulis to create 90s' style desserts?

I'm not yet sure. One thing I do know is that I will NOT be buying any replacements. I feel quite bad that all these unused chemicals and plastic are going to probably end up in landfill. And after reading Pat Thomas' Skin Deep I feel thoroughly convinced that none of this stuff is worth buying. I hadn't really thought before about all the ingredients and what they were there for, apart from feeling a little uncomfortable at 'all the chemicals', and I certainly hadn't realised how many ingredients were based on petrochemicals, let alone thought about all the energy going into producing and transporting this shit.

I'm going to post separately about this book I think because there's lots of really interesting things to pick out of it and I've been rambling on long enough now.

I'll just leave you with a before and after shot of the cupboard. I'm kind of proud of my effort, although it is admittedly hard to tell at first which side is which! I think there is a lot more exfoliating still to do!!!

If you have any ingenious ideas for putting my cosmetic rejects to good use please do let me know!

going red

I made a vow a while back to stop dying my hair. It just stank so much - that feeling of fumes up your nose and icky stuff coating your skin - and it always ended up fading and looking skanky - that I decided it wasn't worth it.

The thing is that hair is one of those trivial kind of things that it's nice to idly think about when you've nothing better to put your mind to. Like what shoes you would like for summer, or what colour you could paint the house or whatever. And it's really tempting to think that a new hair cut or colour will vanquish the 'boredom' that's descended in relation to your current style, and it's really tempting to think it'll change the whole way you look...

So every now and then I get this itch to cut or colour or whatever, except now I am old enough to realise that the boredom is normally only vanquished for about three hours before the new look becomes old news too (or worse, just plain awful news) and I started to think that really I should be trying to occupy my mind with more noble ventures than the pruning and primping of stuff that grows on my head...

Anyway, not having enough noble and worthy stuff to think about, I got round to thinking about hair again recently - I can't remember why - and started researching henna. It had rave reviews, and all nice and plant based avoided the issue I had with the dyes which raised bumps on my scalp and the bleaches that burned white dots into my fingertips.

And... I could even convince myself I was doing it in the name of research and public service information, rather than a little vanity project tp fill up a Saturday morning!...

So, I took myself to Lush and bought a block of their Caca Rouge (left) - Lush's seemed to be well recommended on the various sites I read and seemed a bit easier than sourcing and mixing up the powder yourself. It's basically just the henna (which is a plant extract) with some cocoa butter and a bit of perfume. Their other colours include indigo and coffee to give dark or chestnut effects.

You pour boiling water on the block and leave it to soak a little (below right).

After a while (longer than it said) it's achieved the consistency of mud, or fresh cow dung or something and at this stage it looks really gross.
It smells a little weird too. However, smothering my head in warm stinky cow dung was a lot more fun than I thought.

There's a bit of a trick to it, but once some of it's on the rest goes on quite easy.

Then all you have to do is wrap your head up in clingfilm so you look like a freaky alien, and swan around the house doing this and that until enough time has passed (I did three hours, though I think people do anything from 1 to 4) .

And after a little rinsing and shampooing, a head of Very Coppery hair appeared.

For comparison, this was my hair before - it looks nice on the left in the light of the bathroom, but in notmal light looks more mousy like on the right.

And, this was my hair afterwards. Not great photos, but you get the idea - quite RED. Later it turned even more orange, which was a little scary, but it's settled into an auburn-y light brown now, which is nice.

So, all in all, highly recommended, if you're looking for a change with a lower chemical impact than the usual high street brands.

Find good info on henna here:
http://www.hennaforhair.com/