Posted on October 14, 2009 - by Leslie Billera

Beyond Luxury: Why Organic Soap is Just Plain Healthier

Your skin is an organ – your body’s largest one in fact.

Skin ingests pretty much everything you put on it. Ingredients travel straight into your bloodstream, which then carries them to your organs. In fact, research shows that skin can absorb as much as 60% of whatever is applied on it.

Soap, a skincare product you use every single day, typically hosts chemical culprits that lurk behind pleasantly packaged bars and bottles. Consider these ‘conventional’ soap ingredients…

1,4-Dioxane

This petrochemical is considered a probable human carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In spite of its toxicity, you won’t find 1,4 Dioxane on ingredient lists since it’s actually a byproduct caused by the manufacturing of other ingredients. If a product has ingredients with an ‘eth’ in their name – sodium laureth sulphate, polyethylene glycol, oleth, myreth, ceneareth – most likely, the product will test positive for 1,4 Dioxane.

Diethanolamine

DEA is a surfactant that helps to stabilize foams and is a potential carcinogen. It is readily absorbed through the skin and has been linked with stomach, esophagus, liver and bladder cancers according to the Cancer Prevention Coalition. Beware of synthetic, “natural” ingredients like cocamide DEA

Parabens

A known endocrine disruptor, parabens interfere with the body’s natural hormones. According to the Environmental Working Group and many other sources, parabens are also linked to cancer. On labels, they can be found as methylparaben, ethylparaben, butylparaben and propylparaben.

There’s many more, but you get the point…it turns out that getting clean can be a dirty business. That’s why organic soap isn’t just a luxury…when it comes to your health, it’s a necessity.