What is What

today i saw my son trying to eat the contents of a cherry chapstick tube. i grabbed it from him and looked at its impossible to comprehend list of ingredients.. Then i looked up cherry chapstick by name on cosmeticsdatabase.com. I was suprised and a bit angry to find out that according to cosmetics database "skin deep" section 99 percent of products have lower concerns for toxicity.

the fact is.. I have used the database baby section for all my basic baby product needs for several years now. It has been very very helpful not just for the kids products but for my products as well and that is why i want to share it here.  I try really hard to eliminate toxins from the immediate environment of my family but this time it was chapstick that had snuck by my watchful eye. I truly cannot stand all the shit that people are unknowingly exposed to and have, by educating myself, methodically eliminated them from my home. But I am learning its never enough. .. there is always something new or something more reasonably priced with just a touch more toxic content. it makes me feel almost obsessive about it but i also cannot ignore it.  consider that you sleep in a flame retardant mattress dipped in chemicals and emitting volitile organic compounds from its formaldehyde soaked wood with plastic and foam contents, you wrap yourself in a sheet that has been washed with a neurotoxic detergent and bleach and then dried with a fabric softener sheet that makes it smell so sweet but its impossible to even know what the softener contains.. the room your in is painted with seriously nasty chemical paints especially the child friendly easy wipe ones. ok so.. you get out of bed and walk across your flame retardant plastic resin and cotton rug with industrial dyes bonded to the airborne fibers and into the bathroom where your airfreshener is spewing some chemically enhanced blood brain barrier crossing fragrance in your face. You turn on the flouride, jet fuel and pharmaceutical laden tap water by grabbing the handle of the spigot which was cleaned by a non-abrasive immuno-comprimising anti-bacterial abomination of science and nature, you brush your teeth with who knows what sucralose aspartame laden sweet goop with more flouride, then on to wash your face with some petroleum based soap that somehow causes cellular level changes to your body according to scientist not employed by the industry. then you put on your detergent and softener bearing clothes and lets not forget our aluminum anti-perspirant that smears aluminum into your pores. Then there is makeup and cosmetics but too obvious i wont go there and neither will those so attached to their products they will ignore its contents no matter what. now its time to eat. forget it. I wont go into food either .. but your dishwasher detergent dust is slightly visible on your otherwise very sparkly bowl.. yum. ultimately what i have learned is that you can only eliminate what you know about one thing at a time. unfortunately the more you know about the chemical ingredients in all of these things the crazier you begin to look as you slowly strip them out of your formerly convenient easy going life. in time they all ad up into a giant wall of shit that your ducking and dodging from relatives friends our situations where its either toxic sunscreen or no sunscreen. i give in some but this post is about my son trying to eat the cherry chapstick. it simply and absolutely maddening.