4 Potentially Toxic Beauty Products To Stop Using — For Good

The average woman uses 12 personal care products a day, and they contain an average of 168 unique ingredients.

This number may seem high, but think about your typical bathroom routine: Each morning you brush your teeth, take a shower, and use some soap, body wash, shaving cream, shampoo, and conditioner. After the shower, you put on lotion, deodorant, face cream, makeup, hair styling products...the list could go on and on.

Not all of these products are toxic, but many of them often contain dangerous chemical compounds like parabens, phthalates, and dioxins. Daily exposures to these chemicals really add up over time, so it's incredibly important to watch what you're putting on your body.

Bar soap seems like a simple enough product, but its ingredients can be anything but simple. Its magical lather effect is made possible by a chemical called sodium laureth sulfate (SLS)—a common skin, eye, and lung irritant. (There's a reason it hurts when you get soap in your eyes!) Other ingredients to watch out for are triclosan, parabens, and fragrance (which is often just a blanket term used to describe chemicals not listed on the label).

I know what you’re thinking: Finding new deodorant isn't an easy task! But these days, there are so many natural options on the market that are as effective as the chemical stuff. Some of the most common offenders in traditional deodorants are fragrance, propylene glycol, triclosan, phthalates, and parabens. Replace them with options that use shea butter, coconut oil, baking soda, arrowroot powder, cocoa butter, and vitamin E.