Health and Fitness

I found a paraben and phthalate-free hair conditioner that actually works for my somewhat difficult hair type. It’s made by Avalon Organics, and it isn’t cheap - but it actually works so well on my hair that I can use a bit less than I normally would, so hopefully that will help offset the price a bit. Anyway, the product is called Avalon Organics Lavender Nourishing Conditioner.

Avalon Organics is committed to making products free of parabens and phthalates, which means that I can try *any* of their hair and skin products and know that I’m not exposing myself or my breastmilk to chemicals that may harm me or my son. Granted, their other products might not work for me, but at least I found a hair conditioner that works!

If you didn’t see my previous post about toxins in beauty products, here’s a quick recap of why I’m looking for non toxic products:

• I’ve been hearing about harmful chemicals in cosmetics and other beauty products
• I started reading about the research behind the headlines
• I decided that even though the jury is out on many of these chemicals, avoiding them wouldn’t be a bad idea until there is a consensus among scientists on whether or not they are safe
• As with most other health concerns, pregnant and nursing women should be careful because everything is passed to fetus or breastfeeding infant - I happen to be a nursing mom

Here are the ingredients I found that are commonly used in beauty products that may be toxic:

• parabens - easily identifiable because if you read the ingredients, you’ll see paraben
• phthalates - not so easily identifiable, because they are often used in fragrance, which may be listed as simply “fragrance”

I wanted to switch all my beauty products to safer, less toxic formulas, but I was having trouble finding hair conditioner that actually worked for me. My hair is fine-textured but there is a lot of it, and I wear it long despite the fact that it tangles easily and I tend to get dry, split ends. So even without eliminating common ingredients, a lot of products don’t work for me.

Before learning what to look for in the ingredient list, I bought some “greenwashed” products, which I later found out did contain parabens and/or phthalates, and not only that - they didn’t work for me either.