Ditching the Bathroom Chemicals - Update

Since I posted about this last month, I've made some changes and discoveries, so here is an update.

First and foremost, I am still 'with the program'.

My medicine cabinet still contains just a handful of items, none of which have lists of ingredients I don't understand.

I don't smell or look a mess; and I continue to gain satisfaction from knowing I am dodging another of modern life's bullets.


The Miswak Toothbrush

I am now mostly using Miswak (also known as Peelu), after it was mentioned by a number of commenters. This is the traditional method of cleaning teeth used in parts of Asia and the Middle East. The process, is as follows:

1. Take a piece of miswak and remove the bark.
2. Chew the remaining stick until it's soft and brush-like
3. Use it to brush your teeth
4. When you are done, clean it and store hygienically
5. When needed, snip off the old brush part with scissors and repeat the process
6. When the stick is too small, start a fresh one

I first bought some very rough 'red miswak' (aka Dandasa) from a local Asian store, but it was quite difficult to use.

As you can see from the photos, the red miswak is not always uniform. I've imagined this is used by older guys who've been doing this for years, and are expert. Perhaps when they were young this was all you could get. Perhaps they have also grown accustomed to the quite bitter taste.

I then found some miswak sticks online that seemed more specially geared for the purpose of teeth cleaning. These are much easier to use.

Miswak leaves your teeth feeling clean. The packed sticks taste different, less bitter; but I am undecided as to whether, and if so, how, they have been treated. Could there be nasty ingredients involved? I don't know. I chose 'natural' flavour, but they were also available in peppermint.

For now I am enjoying this. I tend to do it in front of the television when I am relaxing rather than in the bathroom. Every now and again I brush with my electric toothbrush using water or sodium bicarbonate, as described in the first post. This is usually when I am in a rush.

Vodka as Mouthwash

In the last post, James commented that I should try vodka and cinnamon as a mouthwash. Some mouthwash has alcohol as an ingredient, so this would make sense.

I don't normally use mouthwash, but in the interest of science, and since we have a bottle in the house, I tried it. Unfortunately, I had no cinnamon.

Yowser. This was not a pleasant experience. My mouth did not feel refreshed, but violated. It's difficult to imagine how some cinnamon could mitigate all of that. However, a load of additives like sorbitol could perhaps sweeten the pill, which is, I guess, what they do with the stuff you buy.

I will continue to pass on the mouthwash for now.

Upgrading to Dr Bronner's Soap

In the first post Bob Garon commented that the olive oil soap I was using might contain aluminium, under the ingredients item 'mineral salts'.

Why is aluminium bad? This (more or less randomly selected) article summarises the supposed dangers. Ideally, I would seek evidence and studies; but since I lack the time, and since there is an alternative that does not inconvenience me, I am happy to exercise avoidance.

Thus, I bought some Dr Bronner soap, which had been mentioned by a few people. The ingredients were more numerous, but none are as vague as 'mineral salts.' Just oils, citric acid, vitamin E and salt. It's not cheap, but the bar is twice the size of the olive oil soap, and it smells nicer, which makes getting buy-in from Mrs M easier!

Aluminium-Free Sodium Bicarbonate

There was also some debate in the comments of the first post about whether sodium bicarbonate contains aluminium.

Yes, according to Bob. No, according to Mudbeard, who was able to supply the molecular definition to illustrate his point. Anya pointed out that aluminium is added to baking powder. Mudbeard then explained that baking powder can be a mixture of things, and is not the same as sodium bicarbonate.

Interestingly, you can buy 'aluminium-free' bicarbonate of soda. Is this a marketing gimmick? Surely bicarbonate of soda is, by definition, aluminium-free because as Mudbeard says, it describes a single-molecule substance.

Either way, since you can buy a kilo of the aluminium-free bicarbonate of soda for a few pounds (less than $5) and this will last me for months, I care not. So I bought some.

Deodorant Itchiness

Naturally, I am now using the aluminium-free sodium bicarbonate.

The article I mentioned in the first post talked about itching from using sodium bicarbonate under the arms. The author added corn starch to make it less abrasive.

I must admit, I have since noticed a little irritation myself, but only mild. I think it depends on how you apply it. I have been trying to get the job done with one or two 'pats', rather than trying to force it into every nook and cranny under my arm. So far the effectiveness does not seem to have been affected this.

Coconut Oil vs. Almond Oil as Moisturiser

I am still using almond oil, but did try coconut oil a few times, as recommended by a few commenters on the first post. It was also good - and indeed slightly less greasy, as people said it would be.

I may make the switch at some point. Coconut oil might also be easier to use, since at room temperature, most of the time in the UK, it is butter-like. Almond oil is always a runny liquid and it's easy to over-dispense and end up using toilet tissue to de-grease.

Shampoo and Conditioner - Frequency Adjustment

I am still using the bicarbs and vinegar solutions, but less frequently than before - I have realised I only need to occasionally clean off the dirt that washing with water cannot remove.

I think this dirt builds up more slowly than the oiliness regular shampoo users irritate their hair into producing.

Dream_Puppy asked in the comments of the first post whether I knew any 'chicks' who use this approach and I suggested Mrs M, who has long-ish hair, was threatening to give it a whirl. So far, she has not.

See also:

How I Ditched the Chemicals in my Bathroom Cabinet

... Read more

How I Ditched the Chemicals in my Bathroom Cabinet

This was no walk in the park - I am an office-based professional so I need to appear presentable and not smell bad. Yet I also do a lot of sport, do an hour of walking per day (to and from work) and live in a climate that can get fairly warm for half of the year.

Yet at the same time, I do not want to continue using chemical-laced, ill-tested products.

I have found alternatives for: toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, soap and moisturiser. In each case I tell you why I wanted to ditch it and my experiences finding an effective alternative.

Articles on websites Mark's Daily Apple (for example, this one) have repeatedly highlighted that it's not just what goes into our bodies that matters. The pharmaceutical and other companies are just as reckless with the chemicals they ask us apply externally as those they expect us to swallow.

I was also inspired by this widely read post by Richard at Free the Animal, in which he described his ditching of soap and shampoo.

Before and After Photos

Shampoo and Conditioner
Soap
Toothpaste
Deodorant / Anti-Perspirant
Moisturiser

New Portability
Other Things I have Ditched

My Bathroom Cabinet Before and After

These are the photos before after I removed from my bathroom cabinet the things I would no longer be using... and a photo of the pile of crap I threw away.

Bathroom cabinet BEFORE.

Bathroom cabinet AFTER.

The things I threw away.

Okay, so I also took the opportunity to tidy it up, which it look better too! But I did ditch a whole load of soaps, creams, shampoos, toothpaste and other sundry crap I would no longer need.

Shampoo & Conditioner

This was where my journey started. Last month I once again stopped washing my hair with conventional shampoo, which was stripping it of its natural oils. I knew that after 2-6 weeks my hair would 'clean' itself naturally and stop looking greasy.

So I chose a holiday period to start the process. After 4 weeks, it had recovered from the initial greasiness and looked okay. Then, it started to get dirty again. I live in the city, so perhaps it was pollution. Whatever the reason, this was a familiar problem, because this had happened on previous attempts to go shampoo free.

Mrs M quickly began to warn me about my appearance, so I did some reading. There had to be a better way. I found this article. Baking soda and apple cider vinegar are all you need, said the author. You simply create diluted solutions of each to use as shampoo and conditioner. They don't strip your hair of its oils, and it looks and feels good.

Without telling Mrs M (or my Mother, her co-conspirator in the pro-shampoo lobby), I tried it out.

"How is my hair looking?" I casually asked them one day, having used the new solution.

"Good, actually" they both replied - "you've started using shampoo again, right?"

When I explained what I was doing, Mrs M was intrigued and my Mother was not surprised. Apparently it's what her mother used to do. They are both considering trying it, especially Mrs M, who currently spends big dollar on supposedly safe alternatives. To my untrained eye, the ingredients of these knee-tremblingly expensive products appear every bit as suspect as those in regular products.

Below are the photos of my set up - one bottle of vinegar and one tub of baking soda - cost: negligible. For each, two smaller bottles which I periodically fill with a dilute solution of each.

In the shower, I splash them on in the usual order, rinsing and massaging in between, and hey presto, good feeling, good looking hair. The bottles go in the shower with my olive oil soap - more on that in a moment.

Conditioner from apple vinegar.

Shampoo from baking soda.

The full shower kit!

Soap

I have been using soap made by Simple for years. Recently it struck me that for a 'simple' product, there were an awful lot of ingredients in the soap. I wanted to be able to clean myself without worrying about whether that list of chemicals contained any that give cancer to mice.

First, I read this article on how to make your own soap, but realised it way more effort than I was prepared to put in.

What the article did confirm, was that the ingredients required to make simple soap are fewer than I had been finding on the packaging of soap I was buying. After a little searching, I found some soap that was genuinely simple.

Olive oil soap.

Ingredients: genuinely simple.

Toothpaste

Having read about the work of Weston A. Price, I am very aware of the impact of diet on tooth health. Moreover, I had been told by my own dentist that the brushing of teeth is important primarily because of the gum stimulation it provides, and that cavity and decay prevention are a function largely of diet.

Sure, toothpaste has a proven protective effect against decay and cavities, but if you have a diet that does not promote those things, it's not needed. Paleo/Primal is such a diet.

There are ingredients in toothpaste that can be found in other personal hygiene products, such as Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, which my Mum had been warning me about for years and which this article suggests may cause problems.

My conclusion was that I should stop brushing with toothpaste.

Brushing with just water is okay, but I was missing the 'minty fresh' post-brushing feeling. So I investigated alternatives. And guess who popped into the frame once again? Good old baking soda. I read this article on a dentistry website, which seemed to suggest it was entirely safe. They suggested using a fluoride rinse to protect against cavities, but for the reasons above, this would not be necessary. Another article suggested caution because of the abrasive effects on the enamel.

I tried the baking soda. It was anything but a 'minty fresh' experience... but it was still vaguely satisfying relative to water. I decided to brush twice a week with baking soda and the rest of the time with only water.

One final hurdle: I was getting pressure from Mrs M about breath freshness. She seemed to be under the impression that toothpaste is the only way to avoid bad breath. I dispute this. Bad breath may be fleetingly mitigated by cleaning your teeth with toothpaste, but it merely creates the brief illusion of fragrance.

Ever smelled the breath of someone trying to disguise a heavily garlic-laced meal with breath freshener? Not pleasant. Halitosis originates from the stomach, not the teeth. And you don't need toothpaste to ensure your teeth and mouth are clean - water is fine.

I regularly floss my teeth too, which avoids food getting trapped between teeth. Brushing does not always remove all of this, leading to bad breath even after brushing, as the food decays in the mouth.

If you are interested in exploring the alternatives (e.g. coconut oil, xylitol), read this article. Now that I have 'let go' of the minty fresh experience, I am happy with water and intermittent baking soda - but you may prefer to experiment more widely.

Baking soda in a pot for toothpaste.

Deodorant / Anti-Perspirant

First of all, I tried wearing nothing at all. Mrs M went deodorant-free for a while and never seemed to smell. For a few days I was fine. Then I started to catch the odd whiff of 'man' through my shirt during the day. Not good for your confidence in the office.

It had obviously taken a few days for the chemical deodorant to work itself out of my pores and for the bacteria to realise it was party time. Towards the end of the week, after I had been walking home from the station for 20 minutes, I'd managed to generate quite a stink. So not using deodorant or anti-perspirant at all was not an option.

I did some reading, and came across this article in which the author says our old friend baking soda worked wonders for her.

A week ago I started using baking soda under my arms in the morning - just a splash, as if it were talcum powder. A week later, no stink. It works.

Baking soda in an old talc dispenser as deodorant.

Baking soda ready to apply to the armpit.

The lady who wrote the article does talk about getting some itching with the baking soda. She recommends a baking soda + corn starch mixture, but I have not found the need for this.

Moisturiser

I have been an obsessive user of moisturiser on my hands and face for years, but had become increasingly concerned about the list of chemicals in the ingredients. As with the soap, I had been using a brand whose 'simple' ingredients were its main selling point. Yet there still seemed to be a lot of them, none of which I knew much about.

A visit to Mark's Daily Apple yielded this article, proposing almond oil as an excellent, natural and cheap moisturiser. So I bought some.

Initially used too much and found myself facially 'oiled up'. Once I realised how little was required, I was able to apply it to my hands and face in a way that left me feeling moisturised but not greasy. That bottle is going to last a long time.

I use a smaller bottle as a more convenient container keep on the bedside.

Almond oil as moisturiser.

New Portability

The nice thing about my new personal hygiene products is compactness. I get to choose the containers they go into. No more too-large, too-heavy containers, designed to give the impression of quality and volume... instead, I use my own, home-selected containers.

Here is a photo of the products I now take to the gym. It weighs a fraction of the previous stuff. A small plastic pot of baking soda will last for weeks as deodorant, as will the small bottle of almond oil as moisturiser.

Travelling light is important when you walk for an hour between home, gym, train station and work.

My portable version for the gym. I bother with hair on those days.

Things I have Already Ditched

Sunscreen. You may have spotted some sun screen in the pile of stuff I threw away. This had been lurking in my bathroom cabinet since I stopped using it last year. If anything I am more afraid of this than all the other products, which explains its early exit from usage. This post from Richard on Free the Animal shows some disturbing stats.

Aftershave. To be honest, I never really used it so there was not much to ditch.

Shaving Foam. I've used an electric razor for several years now.

So that's it. I now feel mostly chemical free in the bathroom. I would be interested to hear your own experiences and suggestions in this area.

Before and After Photos

Shampoo and Conditioner
Soap
Toothpaste
Deodorant / Anti-Perspirant
Moisturiser

New Portability
Other Things I have Ditched

See also:

Ditching the Bathroom Chemicals - Update

----------------------------

Finally, a question - I have used some new image 'technology' in this post. When you click on the small pictures they open as a larger 'overlay' on the page. Did this work on your browser/PC/phone? Do you find it better or worse than the normal linking method? Did you notice that you can use the arrow keys to go through the images like a slide show?... Read more