Using Only Food On The Body

[Guest guest]

While in many areas of my life I have been called " hard core " or a

" purist " I have definitely gotten past the " I'll only use what I'd eat

on my the outside " or " Its food so its got to be ok for my skin "

 

Two quick examples off the top of my head ... I'll eat habanera peppers,

but I wouldn't DARE put them on my skin! On the other hand I am super

strict about not eating hydrogenated oils (ask my hubby who has dubbed

me the " food nazi " but I'll use them on my skin as the reasons I

won't eat them have nothing to do with skin application.

 

Soy wax is hydrogenated soy oil, olive wax (and butter) is hydrogenated

olive oil, etc ...

 

Then we get into the " solvent extracted " area .. carnauba wax is a

solvent extracted wax. Absolutes are solvent extracted. Many vegetable

oils are solvent extracted (not all, but many). Do I prefer to use stuff

that hasn't been solvent extracted, SURE! Do I get totally anal about it

at this point - well, not as much, but I still won't use synthetic

fragrance oils ... and I do generally prefer to use things that haven't

been solvent extracted, but I'm not about to toss my jasmine absolutes

or carnation absolute out the window either

 

How natural IS an essential oil even - when you're exposing plant

material to an unnatural heat which is a catalyst that causes it to

fractionate into different parts and chemical components and not retain

all of its original botanical composition (or in the case of blue

chamomile oil - new chemical components are actually created - the

azuline) ...

 

Do I try to stay as much of a purist as possible - I sure do .. as I

said - I don't use synthetic fragrances, synthetic FD & C colors (in or

outside the body), etc ... but do I use chemicals extracted from

botanical sources sometimes ... I don't know of a " vitamin E bush " that

secretes drops of pure vitamin E oil *lol* - but I'll use natural source

vitamin E for a variety of purposes

 

What is natural is a great question! To some folks unless whatever it is

stays exactly as it was when it came out of the ground it is not natural

(I am on some raw foods lists that have folks on them that believe

cooking food in any way is unnatural), while folks on the other end of

the spectrum say " well, crude oil and petroleum comes out of the ground,

so all those products are natural source too " ! Then you have everything

in between ...

 

I suppose it is something we have to all figure out for ourselves and

some days I am in a stricter mood than others (with skin items, not with

food - when it comes to food I'm a " nazi " every day , but it is not a

cut and dry black and white issue, that is for sure ...

 

*Smile*

Chris (list mom - going to bed now that I've blah blah'ed y'all with my

two cents for the night

http://www.alittleolfactory.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Thank you, Chris, for the excellent post... there is indeed

complexity here. It's been enough to make me consider using an oil

blend, perhaps thickened with a small percentage of butters, instead

of lotion... an option that's still on the table.

 

I'm lucky to have escaped the " food nazi " title, although it's

probably not undeserved :-) But I'm still not so sure about putting

something like hydrogenated oils on my skin. First, I'm not sure that

the science is there--do we know these things aren't absorbed? My

impression is that we still have a long way to go in understanding

our skin, absorption, and related topics.

 

Second, on a not so scientific note, how does processing affect the

energetics of the ingredients? There seems to be a fine line between

simply using parts, and the fragmentation connected to use of refined

ingredients.

 

I'm still undecided, for example, on fractionated coconut oil...

coconut oil of course being a great example of something I love on

skin but won't eat (regardless of what the more recent science says,

the clinical experience still says otherwise).

 

What I've read says mechanically processed carnauba is available...

as opposed to, say, candelilla... and my concern with solvent

extracted items doesn't just have to do with the traces of solvent

left in the product, but also with supporting a market for those

solvents. Hexane is a petroleum product and a pollutant. I want to be

part of lessening, if not ending, its use, not sustaining it.

 

I don't own any absolutes (yet?) Of course, if I'm going to

compromise anywhere, trust me to compromise for jasmine! :-)

 

So with food the question I ask isn't, " Is it natural? " but " Is it

whole? " , which kind of obviates the former. And the whole foods

framework I've been using then looks at derivatives and judges them

by their effect. The ones with effects we want are viewed more as

medicinals, rather than nutritives--for use as long as indicated. For

example, oils are *not* whole foods. And so they're taken for

specific reasons, in specific ways. Olive oil is just about the only

one recommended for regular use. Omega-3 oils and others until an

imbalance is addressed, but the ideal is that the diet is designed to

promote and sustain balance after that.

 

I would change what you said slightly... I would say that we " get " to

figure it out for ourselves. I love that we get to choose what we're

comfortable with, make decisions based on the system(s) that resonate

for us, and be completely irrational when we want as well.

 

It's a day to day thing for me--you should see the commercial crap

I've been rubbing on my clients ;-) Even with the food, I compromise

a lot more than I would like right now. That generally looks like

eating out (there are NO whole foods restaurants here in SF, none

that I know about anyway), but can also look like buying non-grass

fed beef, or <gasp> cheaper chocolate :-D

 

BTW, have you all had Rapunzel brand chocolate? Oh. My. God.

 

}{ugs,

Josh

[Guest guest]

Hi Chris:

 

I think the bigger question is: why food nazi, why obsessed with what

goes in the body and on the skin? It's a late-20th Century cultural

and societal phenom. I was a food nazi at 18, with macrobiotics. Then

vegan (before the word vegan was known). I grew up and got over it,

since I'm not the parent or caretaker for my friends, I had no right

to diss what they ate. I actually didn't do that, I would just

champion my lifestyle. That's called being a boor. I decided to stop

being boorish.

 

100 years ago the life expectancy was mid-40s. People are living

longer now, often twice that, or more, and the obsession seem to be

control your food and you'll live longer still. (Controlling

environmental pollutants is a close second, and in the case of

chemical dump sites, I agree.)

 

No big point to make here, just some early-morning musings on the

obsession.

 

My German grandmother ate pork and sugar and used Avon crap on her

skin, and went to take a nap and died peacefully. At 89.

 

I like that we can control what we want to use on and in our bodies

more now, but I draw the line at " friends " who, when dining, dissect

every carb, fat, or whatever molecule being taken in, while reciting

their latest doctors reports and/or fad obsession. Shut up, boor.

 

Many of us reject chemically-laden foods, perfumes, and other personal

items because we have had bad reactions, allergies and the like. That

makes sense, I'm sure they did that even 100 years ago. The unhealthy

aspect of this knowledge and wanting to make everyone in your sphere

of influence (mothers like Chris excepted because they're the

gatekeepers for the family, ditto wives and husbands for their own

union) is that it tends to create factions and fractions among people

who should be united. Let someone use a product they don't " approve "

of, and the user is maligned. Nasty, but true, and I'm sure many of

you have suffered from " political correctness nazis " . Boors.

 

They should stay out of your personal business, or let you live your

professional life as you want, yet they'll resort to attacks to

" convince " you. Yeah, that'll work, lol.

 

I'm reminded of the story of Alex Wek, a famous Sudanese model. As a

child, she had terrible psoriasis on her body. The other children

shunned her, and she was in pain. Her aunt came to visit, took one

look at her, and slathered her head-to-toe in petroleum vaseline.

Within a week, the psoriasis was gone. Won't work for everybody, sure,

but it did for her. Good thing, too. Don't forget this is the land

where shea and other natural butters are readily available. <shrug>

 

It's all just really mindboggling. Nobody knows everything, and we

should look more to what unites us - the desire to use nice, natural

products on our body and in our body -- and less at what divides us,

whether it be political correctness or product correctness, otherwise

we may shorten our lives through stress.

 

End of musings re: looking back at almost 40 years of seeing the rise

of " health " consciousness in America.

http://naturalperfumery.com

The premier site on the Web to discover the beauty of Natural Perfume

" The Age of the Foodie is pass & #65533;. It is now the Age of the Scentie. "

[Guest guest]

Hi Anya,

 

It seems like you're talking about two different things, and I'm

having trouble figuring out which of your thoughts applies to which.

The first thing is being " obsessed with what goes in the body and on

the skin " ... the second is being a nazi or boor about it. And of

course I don't think the latter invalidates the former :-)

 

Plenty of boors, I know... I read your post with a smile, remembering

times I've been with such people, and the times I've BEEN that person

:-) I'm glad to have not seen that in this discussion, though... so

refreshing on the 'net, too, where conversations so quickly devolve

into flame wars. I haven't felt maligned by anyone regarding where

I'm coming from, and I hope no one's felt maligned by me. It's been a

pleasure having these conversations with you folks.

 

It's also interesting to see the range... from folks who don't mind

making lotion out of Crisco, to others I've talked with who won't use

polysorbates and such, and everything in between.

 

So, on to some of the other things you brought up. Sure, some people

grow quite old and die peacefully doing all kinds of things... and

people die young doing all kinds of things. I don't know that staving

off death is what it's *really* about. I think much of it is about

*what* will kill us, rather than *when*. For example, the reason I

cut corn syrup out of my food consumption is because of its link with

diabetes. However, I didn't feel like I was denying myself

anything... quite the opposite... I feel offended by what we let

companies get away with calling " food " , especially as I've learned

more about whole foods and the connections between processed food and

disease.

 

Anyway, beyond the links to degenerative diseases, there are more

immediate benefits, such as improved digestion, fewer

cravings/balanced blood sugar, nervous system/brain function

benefits, enhanced immunity, emotional harmony, facilitating better

relationships with food and our bodies, etc.

 

Not that most things advertised for " health " or " fitness " concentrate

on these... plenty are concerned only on changing appearances--less

size with fad diets, more size with weights--or providing placebo

benefits, such as the processed- " but organic! " -foods sold in health

food stores. These are the types of things that give health

consciousness a bad name, I think. Such an abundance of misnomers in

our culture: " health food " that depletes, rather than nurtures...

" fitness " that has nothing to do with fitting into our bodies... and

now, " whole grain bread " that isn't ;-)

 

I'm with you on focusing on the things that unite us--and I think

taking a holistic view means also seeing how our choices are

connected to the other people we share the planet with. I'm not sure

how taking better care of our cars than our bodies aligns with

that... and that's about folks doing nothing, not folks doing someone

else's notion of the " wrong " thing.

 

Anyway, lately I try simply to hold space for complete freedom, and

make information available to those who are interested when it

naturally comes up. One has so much more*influence* in one's sphere

of influence that way ;-)

 

}{ugs,

Josh