Meryl Smith Lawton

Allison McLean, owner of Carbon, holds up some natural organic soap made by Edmonton company Truffula Organics.

Like most people, I use personal care products.  Not much — lotion, shampoo, deodorant, some mascara, maybe some lip gloss, definitely cover-up — but I use them everyday nonetheless.  And, like most people, I don’t pay all that much attention to the contents.  In fact, I’ve never really considered what insidious compounds are lurking inside my ‘ivory non-comedogenic matte finish’ glop.  I just figure that I’m among the norm, one of the millions who blindly apply lotions and creams and foaming cleansers to my body without really thinking about what the hell is in them.

So what’s inside a typical bottle of shampoo?  Or those glossy pink lip stains?  Well, lots of hard to pronounce compounds, some of which have documented negative effects on our bodies.  Chemicals like parabens, which are used as preservative agents and are pretty much found in everything.  Parabens are known hormone disrupters and are linked to premature aging — somewhat ironic considering they’re added to anti-aging creams.  Then there are phthalates, compounds found wherever there’s a scent.

Phlthalates are banned in the European Union because they are considered neuro- and multisystem-toxins, linked to birth defects and reproductive abnormalities.  Propylene glycol, too, is found in almost every product imaginable — it’s a skin irritant, immune system disrupter and multisystem toxin.  Then there are the others, like sulphates, dioxins, formaldehyde releasers, PTFE, PVC, BPA, Triclosan … the list is seemingly endless.  In fact, more than 10,500 chemicals are registered for cosmetic use in the U.S. alone — seven new chemicals are approved for use each day.  Of these, 90 per cent are not tested for safety because the onus is on the manufacturer to ensure products are safe.

If you consider the fact that the average person uses 10 to 20 products a day, and the average product contains dozens of chemicals, it shouldn’t be a surprise to learn that more than 400 discrete chemicals have been found in people’s bodies by the U.S. Centre for Disease Control National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals.  That’s a freaking lot of chemicals.  But you can’t really blame the consumer for not knowing what’s inside that bottle.  It’s unbelievably hard to try to sort through the literature, the websites, the warnings, and the studies trying to figure out what’s legit, what’s quackery and what’s still hearsay.

Allison MacLean started researching the chemical constituents of everyday household products when her children started to develop health problems.  Physicians had ruled out hereditary or genetic origins, so the new mom started looking at possible environmental causes. 

“I looked at what we ate, first,” she says.  “Researching where our food came from and what’s inside eventually led me to look at other things, like paint and shampoo and soap.”  She didn’t like what she found.  “I thought:  if I’m a typical mom and I’m doing this research and reading in order to make my kids’ lives healthier and better, then really what I’m doing defines all moms.”  Once she discovered how difficult it was to access non-toxic goods in Edmonton, she and her husband Marc Nipp made the decision to open a store that catered solely to organic products. Carbon Environmental Boutique, located on 104th Street just north of Jasper Avenue, opened in 2009.

The store’s mission is to provide safe, sustainable, ethically-sourced and non-toxic products of all kinds, with reasonable pricing and transparency. 

“There’s a three-fold screening process when determining what goes on our shelves,” says MacLean.  “We start with the question ‘is it non-toxic?’ and from there we determine sustainable practices and ethical sourcing of materials.  A product must meet all three if it is to be sold in our store.”  A huge range of organic products are available, from flooring and paint to kitchenware, soaps and household cleaners.  They purchase their goods from suppliers from across North America and focus on local suppliers as much as possible.  “We are advocating non-toxic living by supporting companies that are environmentally responsible and use ethical business practices,” says MacLean. 

Although MacLean does a great deal of research on her own, she relies on two organic chemists to give her the run-down of chemical effects on people.  “What do you know from the molecular level?  How is this product going to react with peoples’ skin or bodies?  I can’t answer all those questions, which is why I rely on the chemists,” she says. 

But doing your own research is just as important, she stresses — people need to equip themselves with the knowledge they need to be safe. 

“There are many resources out there that can help you make informed decisions,” says MacLean.  “Organizations like the Environmental Working Group or the cosmetics database online are really useful, helpful places for getting information.” 

For Jennifer Nolan and Sheldon Durstling, ridding their daily routine of harmful chemicals became a little more hands-on than most. 

“We started to pay attention to the ingredients in our bath products,” Nolan says.  “When we started looking for alternatives, we noticed there was a big void in bath and beauty products — nothing was fully organic.  So we decided to make our own.”

What started as a few bars of organic soap made in their kitchen sink has blossomed into an organic bath and body line of soap, creams, body butters, body washes and bath salts called Truffula Organics. 

Durstling is dedicated full-time, preparing all the products in the couples’ basement while Nolan works as a nurse educator. 

“We needed a silver lining — instead of seeing all the problems, we did something that we thought could help improve the health of others,” Nolan says.  Their products are available online and at several stores around Edmonton and northern Alberta; the couple also travels across Canada to various trade and craft shows with their non-toxic message. “It’s a case of ‘once you know something you can’t un-know’ and so we want to help educate as many people as we can, while providing affordable organic products,” Nolan says.

Making the switch from mainstream to wholly organic, natural products might be as simple as dumping the contents of your house and replacing them with non-toxic versions, but most people — myself included — aren’t going to readily do that.  But there are many ways you can incorporate less harmful products into your life without starting from scratch (and emptying your bank account) — start replacing your products one-by-one as you use them up.  And do your own research and decide what is important to you and your family before you start inventorying your life.

“We have the power to alter the environments that we create for ourselves,” says MacLean.  “Simply changing your home into a healthier place will have big impacts.”  Or, as one person said to me recently:  “Don’t stress out too much — the stress itself will have a worse effect on you than the chemicals themselves.  So chill.”

Resources:
www.truffulaorganics.com
www.carbonboutique.com
www.ewg.org (Environmental Working Group)
www.e-sage.ca (Edmontonians Supporting a Green Economy)
www.cosmeticsdatabase.com