Your skin is your largest organ for eliminating waste and toxins from your body and the most important immune defense barrier. You cannot be in good health without healthy skin. We release cellular waste though our skin.  Each month our skin cells renew. Skin has a “mother cell” which duplicates itself every 24 to 40 days. The new cell is an exact replica of the mother cell and travels to the skin surface to replace the old cell that sloughs off. You skin is continuously being regenerated every minute of every day.
    Commercial products with harmful petroleum ingredients can clog your pores allowing germs and toxins to enter the body. Everyday we use products for skin and body care, that we believe are safe; however, the truth be told, these products are not always safe and the manufacturers may not be required legally to be forthright with this information.
In 1938, the FDA granted self-regulation to the cosmetics industry. All cosmetic products are marketed without government approval of ingredients, regardless of what research and testing demonstrates and proves. Most of the 25,000 chemicals used are not tested for long-term toxic effects.  On any given day you may use or be exposed to over 200 different chemicals, many are suspected of causing cancer or are known carcinogens, and disrupt or interfere with your hormones and other body systems.
    Amelia Hill wrote in The Observer  (4/7/2002), “Women are being exposed to deadly diseases through the everyday use of common cosmetics bought over the counter according to a new study….”
 In Drop Dead Gorgeous: Protecting Yourself From The Dangers of Cosmetics, Kim Erickson and Dr. Samuel S. Epstein write”Modern cosmetics contain a host of dubious ingredients which would be more at home in a test tube than on our faces…Coal tar colours, phenylenediamine, benzene,   even formaldehyde, are just a few of the synthetic chemicals commonly included in shampoos, skin creams and blushes-toxins which are absorbed into your skin with every use.”
The Observer article further quotes Dr. Jean Munro, Medical Director of Breakspear Hospital, Hertfordshire, U.K. specializing in allergies and who has seen 8,000 women since 1982. Dr. Munro said, “There is no question that people are being damaged by their cosmetics... How can they not be? So many things are put into cosmetics now that are carcinogenic and it is allowed because cosmetics are not considered to be as serious as drugs or food.”
    Look for the continuation of this article in the December edition of YourHEALTH Magazine.
    CHECK ALL YOUR SKIN, BODY, & CLEANING PRODUCT LABELS!!