wellness tip! (or, a post about my neurosis)

Dr Bronner's soap is my jam! This stuff is amazing, and you can use it for a million different things (the peppermint works really well as toothpaste on camping trips). I use it for my body and in my cleaning products- we even wash our dog with it. But this post is not actually about the soap, so much as it is about my neurosis. I am totally freaked out by chemicals. The nasty, screw with your hormones and gut flora, give you cancer kind of chemicals. Many many soaps (and a host of other self care products) contain questionable ingredients that can make you sick, add to your toxin load, disrupt your helpful microbe population in your gut, mess with your hormones... I could go on and on. We all know it is super important to wash your hands frequently, especially in the colder months when colds and flu's proliferate. One of the most preventative things you can do to keep yourself healthy is to wash your hands frequently and well. But what if you are like me, and are trying to avoid these substances and the flu as well, and you walk into a restroom at a restaurant or somewhere, and you see that they have the scary bulk bright pink soap!  Or some other version of "antibacterial" soap... which probably contains triclosan (among other ickies), which as of this fall, the FDA deems "safe" (don't get me started!), but recent studies have shown that it alters hormone regulation in animals and contributes to making bacteria resistant to antibiotics- both things we do not want!!! I don't know about you, but I don't want petroleum derivatives, phthalates, parabens, or triclosan on my body (what goes on goes in!). So that's why, in my quest to be clean of disease and clean of chemicals, I carry my own soap in my purse. Yep, I am the crazy lady who whips out her own soap to wash her hands wherever she goes. I have a mini bottle of Dr. Bronner's Peppermint soap in my bag as we speak, and it is already half empty due to my avoidance of icky pink soap. I encourage you to take your own soap (find a little glass jar of your own and put some chemical free liquid soap in it if you can't find the mini bottles of Dr. B's) with you, so you can avoid cancer causing chemicals and the flu at the same time! No more choosing between the two, as long as you don't mind the funny looks you may get from people when you whip out your own soap in the bathroom.

And that is your wellness tip/ look into my craziness! Hope you are all well as the weather gets colder and the days get shorter! Ps. We are now on Facebook, so if you haven't already LIKED us, please do and get updates and FB only tips from the blog! (pumpkins-parsnips-and-parsimony on Facebook)