One of the major causes of  hormone imbalance and infertility is exposure to toxins from our environment. One of our biggest exposures to these chemicals is through what we put on our skin.  While we can’t avoid all chemical from our environment, we can change what we put on our bodies. These are the top toxicants to watch out for in your personal care products. If you see any of these words on the ingredient label, choose a different product.

1. Parabens – avoid anything ending in -paraben.
2. TEA, MEA, DEA  and triethanolamine
3. Fragrance or parfum– anything with fragrance unfortunately has a mystery concoction of unknown chemicals in it. They are secret chemical cocktails that likely contain phthalates. Choose products labeled “Fragrance free” or companies that disclose their fragrance ingredients.
4. Formaldehyde releasing chemicals – quanternium-15, dimethyl-dimethyl (DMDM), hydantoin, imidazolidinyl urea, diazolindinyl urea,  2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol, sodium hydroxylmethylglycinate.
5. Ethoxylated ingredients – Sodium laureth sulfate, Polyethylene, Polyethylene glycol (PEG), polyoxyethylene,  polysorbate or anything ending with “xynol, “ceteareth” or “oleth”
6. Triclosan
7. Petroleum and petroleum jelly
8. Phthalates and BPA – these are are not listed on labels so look for products labeled  “Phthalate Free” and “ BPA Free”.

Remembering all these names and toxicants is for sure hard to keep straight! I certainly cannot remember all of them!  To make things easier,  products can be looked up on the EWG and Made Safe websites.

Made Safe: https://madesafe.org/

EWG Skin Deep: https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/

On the EWG Skin Deep database, if your product is not listed you can “Build Your Own” report by clicking here. It’s simple, get a list of your product’s ingredients from the product webpage and copy and paste.