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20 Ways to Cool the Sun’s Rays

Posted on May 21, 2015 by Beeyoutiful Mary Leave a comment

Its summer! And no matter if you are blessed with olive skin that enjoys the kiss of summer or are snow white and must hide from the sun’s rays, it’s important to both protect and nourish the skin when exposed to some of the more damaging aspects of sunshine.Growing up, many of us were cautioned to avoid going out during the hottest parts of the day, to stay in the shade during the most intense times, and enjoy the sun in the morning and evening.

We were also coached on the differences between UVA and UVB rays. (UVB rays are the Vitamin D-producing rays, and the UVA rays are the ones guilty of causing damage to the skin.)

While avoiding hot sunshine may help you avoid burns, it may not have been the best advice available! What you probably weren’t told is that damaging UVA rays are prevalent all day long, while beneficial UVB sunlight is best obtained in the midday. UVB light is extremely low in the morning and evening, exactly the times we were encouraged to be outside!

So while I was diligent to do my gardening early in the day to avoid the “intense” sun, I was unwittingly exposing myself to the damaging UVA rays while almost completely missing the beneficial UVB rays.

Thankfully, I’ve gained more complete knowledge since then. Here’s what I’ve learned about sun exposure.

How to Avoid Sunburn

First, there are things we can do to dramatically increase our skin’s health and lower our potential for burns and damage.

1. Build your tolerance by small, increasing increments of barrier-free sun exposure, specifically during the middle of the day. Start with 5-10 minutes (less if you are especially fair) and work your way up daily, adding a few minutes at a time.

2. Use clothing or hats to cover yourself to allow for a barrier; remember that protection is important even on cloudy days, early in the morning, and late in the afternoon.

3. Give your skin a rest with frequent breaks in the shade or indoors.

4. Drink green tea for a plethora of antioxidants that help to protect the skin and body.

5. Take Cod Liver Oil or Omega 3’s. Having a healthy amount of Vitamin D and Omega fats in the body provides natural protection against the sun’s damaging rays.

6. Use a non-toxic sunscreen like Bee Shade!

But I got sunburned anyway!

There are times when even though we’re the most cautious, we do get a tad pink (or even blazing red!). Our bodies fairly scream at us for relief when this happens. There are some great ways to calm the sting, help restore your skin, and reduce the effects of the sun’s rays.

7. Apply Aloe Vera Gel directly from the plant to the sunburn. This provides both soothing relief and healing support to the skin.

8. Gently massage burned areas with a nourishing oil.

Nourishing After-Sun Skin Oil

Mix together equal parts Vitamin E Oil, Aloe Vera juice and Coconut Oil. Apply to skin.

9. Make a soothing paste of Bentonite Clay or French Green Clay and apply to the sunburn. A drop of Lavender or Tea Tree Essential Oil can also be added to the mix.

10. Arrowroot Powder can also be made into a paste and applied to the area. You can add a drop of Frankincense or Lavender Essential Oil as well.

11. Slather on some homemade raw yogurt (use the plain unflavored variety, of course!).

12. Fresh plantain leaves can be bruised and then layered on the burn.

13. Lavender Essential Oil can be added to a carrier oil or witch hazel and spritzed on the burned areas.

14. Spray the sunburn with Hair Shine to help soothe the irritation. (It’s great for hair AND skin!)

15. Make a paste of raw shredded potatoes. Apply to the skin and cover to retain the moisture.

16. Keep well hydrated with water, flavored fruit waters, herbal teas and bone broths. All of these provide hydration, along with the nutrients needed to regenerate fresh skin after a burn.

17. Take an oatmeal bath. Place uncooked rolled oats in a tube sock in the bathtub. The oatmeal provides soothing relief. And while you’re in there, skip the soap! It can contribute to dryness, causing further discomfort to already-tight skin.

18. Make your own burn relief spray.

Cooling Aloe Spray

6-8 Tbsp Aloe Vera water (available at health food stores)

10 Drops of Lavender Essential Oil

10 Drops of Peppermint Essential Oil

Combine in a clean, empty spray bottle and spritz on skin sunburned as needed. NOTE: Cooling Aloe Spray is not considered safe to use while pregnant or nursing. Consider omitting Peppermint and just using Lavender while pregnant or nursing. The Cooling Aloe Spray should NOT be used on children under 10 years old. Consider substituting Spearmint or just using Lavender for children from ages 2-10.

19. Sport some cucumbers! Slice a cucumber into rounds or strips to apply to the burn. Its antioxidant and analgesic properties provide great relief to the burned area.

20. Rest is healing! Try incorporating some topical strategies while lying in a dark room with cool air.

What are your favorite ways to protect your skin from the sun, or to heal from over-exposure? Can you add to our list? We’d love to know! Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Letter from Steph – Summer 2010 Catalog

Posted on September 7, 2010 by stevetallent Leave a comment

Hello!

I feel as though our world has been turned upside down, shaken around, and plopped back upright since I wrote the letter for our Spring 2010 Catalog. I still feel a bit dizzy from the rapid sequence of events in our already eventful lives.

A few weeks after our Spring catalog went to press, my wonderful man left for a two week mission trip to Malawi. (For those of you who draw a blank when trying to figure out which continent Malawi belongs to, I’ll tell you so you can stop wondering.Malawi is located in Central Africa.)Bidding him good-bye was hard. Since we’ve been married, Steve and I have never been apart for more than a week. We’ve gotten used to the luxury of living and working together day in and day out. (Allow me to insert here that my respect and admiration for you military wives whose husbands are away for extended periods of time has reached new levels! God bless you and your families for the sacrifices you make.)

Before he left, Steve went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure everything was in good working order in the business and in our personal lives. Yet my main concern was for him. I’ll confess to having more than a few moments of anxiety over his safety. After all, Africa is very far away and offers some of the world’s scariest diseases, most dangerous animals, rugged terrain, and less-than-stable political climates. If anybody had told me we would end up having more adventures here in Tennessee than he did in Africa I would have laughed! But the joke would have been on me.

A few days after Steve left, I woke with a start one morning to the pale face of our basement tenant looking down at me. “The basement is flooding!” she said, and I bolted out of bed. For the next two days, friends and family helped battle the water pouring into our basement. Although I realized it had been raining—a lot!—I had no clue what a tsunami had poured from the sky on Tennessee’s corner of the world.

We worked night and day to keep the water low enough so it wouldn’t ruin sheetrock or mess with electrical wiring. Around day two, the blinders that had me so focused on my own water problems were blown away by the arrival of my soaking wet mother-in-law. She had been rescued from rising waters in her yard by caring neighbors who got her out before the water could trap her inside her house. It finally dawned on me that we were dealing with an actual flood (although I still didn’t appreciate the stunning proportions of the situation), not just a problem with our particular basement. One moral of this story could be that if your basement floods, it might be a good idea to check the news to find out if the rest of your area is having water problems as well!

As hours turned into days, our home ended up looking like a refugee camp. We had seven adults and our Noelle girl stranded at our house by floodwaters. My courageous brother, John, and his dually truck saved the day innumerable times, plowing through rising waters to obtain necessities.

One wet night in the basement, bailing water gave us something to do while we hid from tornadoes that also blasted our area during the flood. In an ironic twist, Noelle stayed dry in the bathtub, where she slept in a nest of pillows while the rest of us made do, propped on couches and waking periodically to do water patrol. The power went off that night and stayed off for five days and nights.

Then, once the rain stopped, the real flooding began as the run-off dumped into streams and rivers, raising them above the 500-year flood levels in many areas. Still, we made it to a local store and stocked up on necessities like candles, easy-to-prepare junk food (emergency rations, right?), and bottled water. Our city’s drinking water was contaminated for weeks since both the power plant and water purification plant were under water.

Although the laminate flooring in our basement was ruined, we count ourselves among the fortunate.In nearby Nashville, 44,000 homes were destroyed, and within just a mile or two of our house, many homes were 100 percent ruined by floodwaters. Roads washed away. And countless properties, fences, shops, and barns were decimated.

Living through a disaster big enough to earn the FEMA stamp of approval has been amazing. I’m incredibly grateful for the spirit of people in this part of Tennessee. Whereas many natural disasters are made worse by the horror stories of chaos, pillaging, gang rule, and out of control violence, nothing of the kind happened here. Neighbors helped neighbors. People risked their property and, in some instances, their own safety to save or aid others.

Selfless giving of time, resources, energy, and care was the rule of the day. Neighbors rotated the use of one generator a few hours at a time so all their food could be saved. Another drove his truck through deep water to help stranded friends. Someone else risked flooded roads to help stop water from pouring into the home of an elderly couple. A man brought extra ice to his neighbors just in case they could use it to save their refrigerated food. A lady with a flood-damaged home offered clothes to anyone who was worse off and lost everything. Two men whose own homes were under water offered to drive down a flooded road to find the missing grandmother of strangers.

And you: I want to thank customers who ordered during this trauma for your patience. We couldn’t ship orders in the timely manner that is always our goal because the main highway to our shipping facility developed a rather drastic pot-hole (more like a Grand Canyon wanna-be). As you can see in the photo on the _______, it could have swallowed two large trucks whole. Road crews repaired a less extensively damaged alternate route within a couple of days and our local staff gratefully made their way to work—where there was internet service, hot running water, and electricity. (Oh, those seemingly small things we are tempted to take for granted!)

To say we welcomed Steve’s return is an understatement as big as the flood itself. Noelle and I engulfed him and didn’t let go for most of the day. By contrast to our time in the wild world of Tennessee, he had a safe and comparatively laid back couple of weeks in Africa. One of the highlights for him was looking out the window of his hut to see an elephant munching about eight feet from his window.

Life here has been slowly returning to normal. More roads are being repaired so we can use regular routes again. But driving by condemned and abandoned homes is a stark reminder of how many people lost everything. Most did not have flood insurance (no one will insure against floods that “can’t happen”) and are dependent upon family and friends to rebuild their lives. Please pray for their long-term healing and recovery and that the still-acute needs of many will be met.

We’re thankful our shipping facility and products sustained no damage. And we’re especially grateful our friends and family members survived this disaster. We’re likewise thankful for customers and friends who have been so kind and caring through this entire experience.

And finally: A warm-weather catalog letter just wouldn’t be complete without an update on my garden. I’m thrilled to report that my early garden miraculously did not wash away in the flood. Those little plants must have dug their roots in and hung on tight because they all survived—every single one! An explosion of growth has resulted from the rain, and it looks like we just might have the best summer garden ever. Very thankful for that as well.

Enjoy your family this summer. Have fun in the sun and take advantage of as much natural, free vitamin D as you can! If you get a little over-toasted in the quest for D, remember that Miracle Salve and HairShine are sunburn healers. Spritz with HairShine, allow its cooling effect to begin, and then slather with Miracle Salve. After the Miracle has absorbed, spritz again liberally with HairShine. Continue alternating the two until the burn heals. Although we marshmallow people have suffered some pretty severe sunburns around here, peeling is a thing of the past and discomfort disappears almost immediately when we use these two products together.

Thank you for being part of our Beeyoutiful family!

Grace and Peace,

–Steph (Walker) Tallent

steph@beeyoutiful.com

Health

Amazing Aloe Vera – Summer 2007 Catalog

Posted on January 27, 2009 by stevetallent Leave a comment

by S. Lee

Christopher Columbus called it “the doctor in the pot” and attempted to have aloe vera plants on all his ships. The Mayans considered it a magic plant. For centuries it has been used in many countries, including the United States, to treat both internal and external ailments. The American Indians included it among their sixteen sacred plants, cooking the leaves over hot coals and eating them. They also used the pulp to stop bleeding and heal wounds. The fermented gel was used to calm stomach pain, to clean the kidneys and bladder, to dissolve stones, stop coughs and ease pneumonia, and the Egyptians used aloe vera gel on their faces as a beauty treatment.

For years I have known aloe vera was beneficial and usually had an aloe plant in my home. I would cut off a piece of one of the leaves, cut the piece open and rub it on cuts, burns and insect bites. I knew it would promote healing and prevent scars, and I knew it would relieve the itch or pain of insect bites. But now that I have researched aloe vera, I am in awe of it!

The aloe vera plant is a member of the Lily family, but looks somewhat like a cactus. This succulent is usually 80 to 100 cm tall with thick fleshy leaves that are long and narrow. Aloe Vera makes a good houseplant and requires very little care. It is from the mid and lower portion of the leaves that the gel is harvested. When the leaf is cut open it will ooze a clear gel-like liquid within a few minutes. Simply rub the opened leaf on the infected area of the skin for most external uses. Refrigerate leaves after cutting them open if you plan to use them again. If you don’t happen to have an aloe plant handy, the next best thing is to use pure aloe vera gel, such as that in Beeyoutiful’s Aloe Vera Gelcaps. Simply puncture the gelcap and squeeze out the gel.

Aloe vera is so amazing there is an abundance of research showing the antibacterial, antifungal and antibiotic properties of it, as well as how it acts to reduce in?ammation and heal and regenerate cells. In cancer patients, taking aloe vera internally helps by activating the white blood cells and promoting the growth of non-cancerous cells. The National Cancer Institute has ordered increased testing on aloe vera. An injectable form of acemannan, one of the components from aloe vera, has been approved in the United States for treatment of cancer in dogs and cats.

An astonishing array of components found in aloe vera are bene?cial to the human body, including polysaccharides, proteins, enzymes, biological stimulators, more than forty vitamins and minerals such as vitamins A, C and E, Calcium, Potassium, Iron, Magnesium, Zinc and six of the B vitamins, to name a few. Aloe vera also contains seven of the eight “essential” (since our bodies cannot manufacture them) amino acids, eleven of the sixteen remaining “secondary” amino acids contained in the human body and most (if not all) of the eight essential sugars (which are necessary for healthy cells). Plus, there are numerous bactericides, fungicides, germicides and painkilling agents in aloe vera. Study continues on this amazing plant with new components still being isolated and identi?ed.

In 1985 Dr. Bill McAnalley isolated a polysaccharide taken from the aloe vera which he named Carrisyn. Numerous clinical tests on patients with AIDS show that Carrisyn can stop the progression of the virus and showed no secondary side e?ects. Canadian researchers discovered an active molecule possessing remarkable antiviral properties which they named Acemannon. A Japanese doctor has shown that the bradykinase enzyme is responsible for the remarkable anti-pain, calming and healing action of aloe vera.

In 1996 a research study showed that taking aloe vera internally reduced blood sugar levels in diabetics by as much as 48%. Recently an active molecule in aloe has been discovered which gives a very astounding result in the treatment of burns and atomic radiation. Another recent finding is that aloe vera stimulates the production of collagen, which in turn promotes and restores skin cells.

Other clinical research shows its e?ectiveness, when taken internally, in treating and relieving sciatica, multiple sclerosis, ulcerative colitis, ulcers, liver and kidney problems, TB, prostate problems, sores in the mouth, urinary infections, yeast infections, digestive disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome and gastritis, any internal in?ammation, constipation, asthma, cleaning out the colon and more. It is even being used to preserve fresh produce!

A few years ago, someone suggested that my son should drink aloe vera juice to relieve in?ammation in his digestive system. He didn’t like the taste of that juice and would not drink it. But, he would take the gel capsules and he felt much better. Now that I have learned all that aloe vera can do, I am taking the recommended amount of capsules every day and my digestion is greatly improved. I know it is also doing other really good things for my body and my general health.

Studies have shown that applying aloe vera gel to the skin aids healing from minor cuts and abrasions not only by acting as an invisible bandage, but by killing germs and stimulating the growth of healthy cells while soothing and eliminating pain. On insect bites and rashes it reduces or eliminates itching and pain. It helps clear acne because of its antibacterial and cell regenerating properties. It can even be used e?ectively on eye infections such as conjunctivitis and sties, sunburns and other minor burns, blisters, herpes, boils, athlete’s foot, vaginal infections, shingles, frostbite, warts, rosacea, cracked dry skin, wrinkles and as a scalp and hair treatment.

I recently treated a vaginal infection with aloe vera gel (after going to the doctor and getting no help), and it cleared right up. Most of the itching, swelling, pain and redness were gone within twenty-four hours. Having just researched aloe vera, I am con?dent that it killed whatever bacteria or fungus was there.

To treat minor cuts or burns, including sunburns, apply aloe vera gel frequently during the ?rst twenty-four hours. Do the same for poison ivy. The aloe vera will prevent infection and reduce or eliminate scarring. For athlete’s foot, apply aloe vera gel at least four times a day.

For scalp and hair treatment to prevent hair loss, add aloe vera gel to your favorite shampoo and shake it up well. The most effective combination is 70% aloe vera. This helps control dandruff and gives a shine to the hair. Beeyoutiful’s Hair Shine contains aloe vera and not only gives your hair a healthy shine, but also rebuilds damaged hair and makes hair more manageable. Just spray it on.

To make an after-bath lotion, add aloe vera gel to 4-5 drops of glycerin or lemon juice and apply over the body for a refreshing feeling. Add aloe vera gel to your bath to relax muscles or add it to a cream base for a body massage that will ease pain from arthritis, rheumatism, sore muscles, or injury. Add aloe vera to face creams to help heal and condition skin. Many major sports teams in the United States use aloe vera massage creams on their players because of their astonishingly fast relief of soreness and pain.

Many topical products contain aloe because of all its amazing properties, but one must carefully look at the list of ingredients. Aloe is very e?ective at transporting through the skin and will also transport other things with it, including the dyes and other questionable things contained in many skin products.

One of the great things about aloe is that it increases the bioavailability of other foods and vitamins taken with it. For internal use there are basically three forms of aloe-gel, powder and juice. Obviously fresh gel is the best, but it is not always the most convenient. Prepackaged 100% gel is available but, again, is not always convenient, and you have to take quite a bit for an e?ective dosage. Some people like to drink aloe vera juice. Juice does not contain all of the components of gel, or even all that is in the freeze-dried whole leaf powder, so be sure that the juice you buy is at least 95% aloe vera or else it may not be very e?ective at all. Gelcaps are the easiest and preferred form of ingesting aloe vera and provide the most accurate concentrations. They are almost always made by freeze drying gel or whole leaves, concentrating the powder and then reconstituting it in a thick gel and packaging it in a gelcap.

The Aloe Vera 5000 mg Capsules carried by Beeyoutiful are the recommended strength for optimum effectiveness with daily use. For children, Beeyoutiful has a new multivitamin containing aloe vera called Super Kids. With all the benefits of aloe vera, it is no wonder that it has been called the miracle plant and the universal panacea!

Beeyoutiful’s Products Mentioned in this Article:

– Aloe Vera Gelcaps

– Hair Shine Spray-in Conditioner

– SuperKids

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Health

Taking a Shine to Your Hair- Summer 2007 Catalog

Posted on January 6, 2009 by stevetallent Leave a comment

by Nancy Webster

I always assumed I’d have a baby girl first. It seemed the natural thing because I didn’t have much background in boys. My only sibling was a sister. I went to an all-girls’ high school, and all of my dolls were female (never had a Ken). But as standard baby-having procedure dictates, I didn’t get to choose. My first two were boys-all boys, I might add. From their early books, I learned what to call any piece of construction equipment ever invented and the names of every dinosaur yet discovered. I controlled my inclination to heart failure when the boys climbed too high in a tree or picked up a snake. And it was actually fun. Still, I hoped for a girl to dress in ribbons and bows, someone to be a cooking soul mate and a baby lover. So when our third bundle of joy came along and the doctor proclaimed, “It’s a girl!” I literally did not believe him at first.

Precious Anna wore the mandated pink ruffles but ripped out every hair barrette or bow until she was four years old. I became well-practiced in daughter maintenance, though, since she was the first of five girls in a row! The bathroom drawers bulged with brushes and ribbons, and dollies joined the army men on our toy shelves.

Letting (Hair) Go

What I’m going to tell you next is a True Confession of a tired mommy. Because our babies came close together and some had special needs, many nights-no, as long as we’re confessing I should honestly say: most nights-I bedded them down after a quick toothbrushing and a wishful promise to brush their hair the next morning. If hair happened to be in braids, the promise might be made several nights in a row while wispy hairs wrapped more and more intricately around their rubber bands.

When beauty parlor time finally came, my only hope of getting out their tangles was to spray my girls’ hair with a mélange of water, behentrimonium methosulfate, sodium benzoate, dimethicone, hydroxyethyl behenamidopropyl dimonium chloride, polysorbate 20, cetearyl alcohol, trisiloxane, citric acid, fragrance, ceteth-10, and laureth-4. And because tired mommy moments still happen, this threatening sounding broth (a name brand hair detangler and conditioner) has been my only resource-until now.

Taking a Shine to Your Hair

These days, when Grace, our eleven-year-old daughter with Down syndrome, comes to me with a rubber band stuck in her self-styled pigtails, I grab Hair Shine by Beeyoutiful. This organic blend of aloe and the essential oils of lavender, rosemary, and citrus is all I need! I can pronounce the names of each ingredient and could even eat them safely if I wanted to. And the detangling ability of Hair Shine is just as good as the name brand alternative but with the added bonus that it doesn’t make the girls’ hair greasy. There’s also a value-added olfactory benefit. We smell fresh, clean and pretty thanks to the softly aromatic essential oils.

Ingredients for Many Uses

The aloe in Hair Shine comes from a plant much like the one I manage to keep alive to apply in case someone gets burned on our wood stove. It soothes and conditions your skin (and hair) while it adds shine.

The lavender is an especially hard worker in the mixture. It enhances body in your hair and is a major contributor to Hair Shine’s detangling and softening qualities. Like aloe, lavender is known for its use on burns, so putting the two together makes Hair Shine a cooling, healthy alternative to standard sunburn sprays. (Just make sure you don’t use it before you hit the sun-the sweet orange essential oil may actually increase photosensitivity in some people.)

Another use for Hair Shine is as a refreshing body spray, even on your face (close your eyes, of course). Here, the rosemary oil acts as an astringent and skin rejuvenator. And because Hair Shine can be sprayed on either wet or dry hair, you can get trigger happy from head to toe right out of the shower. There’s enough in the four-fluid-ounce bottle to give you hundreds of spritzes, so indulge yourself!

While I’m at it: there’s one other unsung benefit of Hair Shine I discovered once warm weather set in. Ticks-those disgusting arachnids only good for guinea hen food-and other biting bugs leave irritating itchy spots that Hair Shine soothes wonderfully.

But back to hair basics. My five girls and I represent examples of all hair types-fine, straight, curly, course, thick, and thin. Hair Shine helps keep straight hair from looking stringy (plus, the nice smell inspires you to spritz and brush more frequently), and it tones down the frizz of curly hair without the stiffness sometimes caused by other sculpting, frizz-control products. Not only that, Hair Shine costs much less than most alternatives sold through salons.

By the way, girls aren’t the only benefactors of Hair Shine. My 17-year-old son has fine, blond, curly hair. Even though he keeps it very short, the curls on the front can get a little out of hand, and while my mother’s heart loves those curls-remnants of his cherished toddlerhood- David’s not so thrilled with them. He’s accustomed to using water or even a little mousse to tame the twirls, but after allowing me to experiment on him with Hair Shine, he’s sold on the softness and taming for his hair, too. So, Hair Shine is right for pretty much everybody in your family. I wonder about the dog…

Beeyoutiful’s Products Mentioned in this Article:

Hair Shine Spray-In Conditioner

Health

The Oil Crisis and Your – Summer 2008 Catalog

Posted on January 6, 2009 by stevetallent

By Summer Moeller

With the prices of gas continuing to rise, oil is a frequent topic in the news. It turns out it’s also a part of most Americans’ beauty routine.

What? You don’t think it’s part of yours?

A 42-gallon barrel of oil makes about 19.4 gallons of gas; the rest is used to manufacture over 6,000 household products. You probably wouldn’t be surprised to know it’s used to produce paint, ammonia, antifreeze, linoleum, trash bags, bicycle tires, etc. But you might be surprised to know it’s also used for food preservatives, deodorant, cosmetics, aspirin, dentures, toiletries, and food packaging. (See more products made at http://www.ranken-energy.com/Products%20from%20Petroleum.htm .)

I don’t like the thought of using products on my face and skin that also have ingredients in them that are used in rubber cement and fishing boots. It seems like a no-brainer to look for all-natural products, but this is, in fact, a subject of great debate.

It’s estimated that the average American woman uses 9 products a day with 126 different chemicals in them. Have you ever tried deciphering the back of your lotion bottle, shampoo or lipstick tube? Would you know what methylparaben is? Do you know the effects it might have on your skin? Or Opium Graveolens? (Celery. Just having fun. :))

Cancer in Your Cosmetics?

I was amazed to find out that the FDA does not require cosmetics companies to perform any kind of testing to make sure their products are safe before they market them. They are also allowed to make all kinds of assertions, such as “hypoallergenic,” “good for sensitive skin,” and/or “allergy-tested,” that may have no validity to them. In fact, these products may contain ingredients that are irritating, bad for sensitive skin, and allergenic. It would be like me labeling my children “always behaves” or “lets me sleep in” or “never fights.” It looks good, but unfortunately just isn’t true.

Even the phrases “dermatologist tested” or “fragrance-free” do not necessarily mean anything. It simply could mean that a dermatologist tried out some cosmetics and liked them (or was paid to like them!). And “fragrance-free” products may actually contain fragrances; this label may just mean they have no noticeable fragrance.

Furthermore, some chemicals and ingredients used in cosmetics today in the US are banned in other countries because they are suspected carcinogens (cancer-causing agents)!

Petroleum (petrolatum, petroleum jelly) is one cosmetic ingredient that is causing a lot of heated argument. In the EU, it is banned for use in cosmetics unless it can be proven that it has been adequately refined; otherwise, it is suspected of causing cancer. In the US, there are no such regulations. Baby soaps, lotions, cosmetics, and toiletries often contain petroleum bases.

All Chemicals are Not Evil

While reading this article, keep in mind that even though the word “chemical” brings to mind things that are toxic, remember that everything in life is made up of chemicals. For example, water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen. Dihydrogen monoxide might seem a little scary sounding, but it’s just a scientific name for water. Similarly, some of the lists of ingredients in cosmetics and toiletries (and food for that matter!) just need a little research to find out their background. (One helpful book is A Consumer’s Dictionary of Cosmetic Ingredients: Complete Information About the Harmful and Desirable Ingredients Found in Cosmetics and Cosmeceuticals by Ruth Winter, M.S.)

Some manufacturers assert that there is nothing to a worry about; petroleum and other questionable chemicals have been around for decades. Others explain that there are only minute amounts of these chemicals, and that they are so diluted that they are not dangerous.

I, for a change, am skeptical of the popular cosmetic industry and more inclined to believe the claims of organic, natural-based cosmetics companies. Sixty percent of the chemicals we put on our skin are absorbed directly into our bloodstream. (That’s why some medications come in the form of patches.) It makes sense to me to scrutinize what we put on our skin.

Becoming the “Sherlock Holmes” of Skin Products

Finding out which companies distribute healthful, skin-friendly cosmetics and toiletries takes homework. Some companies, like Beeyoutiful, are full-disclosure companies-meaning that they will tell you everything that is put into the products they sell. Most companies are not. They will do as little as they can to inform you, and as much as they can to sell their product. High pricing does not necessarily mean it is a better or purer product.

I was anxious to try some of the all-natural products that Beeyoutiful sells, but I was dubious about their effectiveness. Vanilla is not my favorite scent, but when I opened up the Vanilla Dream Body Butter, I was pleasantly surprised that it was not a sickly sweet smell. It was a light and relaxing scent.

I was even more pleased at how it made my hands feel. I always wash my hands after putting on typical hand lotion. I hate how my hands feel greasy and slimy. With the Vanilla Dream Body Butter, I could feel the difference that the beeswax makes (vs. the petroleum base). There was no greasy feeling, but my hands felt softer and pampered.

I was also pleased with the Hair Shine Conditioner. My daughter has curly hair, and I sampled it on her. I was surprised that the mixture of natural oils didn’t leave her hair looking oily. (At least her hair looked manageable; now could you please make an all-natural spray that repels dirt and peanut butter?)

My absolute favorite product was the Nature’s Touch Body Bar in Lemongrass . I had been using bar soaps lately, but they always left my skin feeling tight and dry. I felt so luxurious using the lemongrass soap, and I loved the scent. It didn’t strip my skin of its natural moisturizers and left it feeling clean but smooth and soft.

After trying these and other products (did I mention that I’m hooked on Miracle Salve as a lip balm?), I was excited to find that buying all-natural products doesn’t mean sacrificing beauty or comfort for health. I’m finding that the right products actually cause your God-created natural beauty to shine by promoting health.

Making Your Skin Smile

Skin has a natural process of renewing that shouldn’t be inhibited. Every minute, we lose 30-40 thousand skin cells! We also sweat (cleansing our bodies of toxins and helping keep our bodies’ temperatures regulated) through our skin. It is a barrier from pathogens that would harm our body.

Not everyone will benefit from the same products. Some may have allergies that others do not. We all have different types of skin and are different ages and stages in life. In general, natural oils such as olive oil and coconut oil tend to lightly moisturize the skin while also allowing it to breathe. Heavy cleansers strip the skin of needed lipids, which keep the skin protected and moisturized.

I like being able to read a package and understand what is in it. I don’t like guessing when it comes to my health or my family’s health. For me, that will mean a lot more research and more time spent in the store scrutinizing labels.

Do your homework! Your skin will thank you for it, and so will your health!

Summer Burdett is a happy wife, mommy to two sweet girls, and enjoys dabbling in writing, photography and gardening-when she is not rescuing the girls from various disasters or trying to repair the house afterwards.

Beeyoutiful Products Mentioned in this Article:

– Vanilla Dream Body Butter

– Hair Shine Spray-In Conditioner

– Nature’s Touch Body Bar

– Miracle Skin Salve