Being balanced has always been a bit of challenge for me. In fact, once I start on a path of action I tend to push hard in that direction until I am done. It is a trait that served me well in Medicine since really no one in their right mind would go through the training if they looked at the time-cost benefit. With that being my nature, I started down the organic, all-natural path myself many years ago (which is great, I thought) but I got stuck. I like to live healthy and make good choices but I am also a bit thrifty and I like results from my products. I simply could not rationalize spending the extra money for products with so-so results and that maybe did or did not impact health. My skepticism was increased even more when I found out that products labeled “organic” didn’t really have to meet high standards.
I dove in to the literature and found an incredible amount of information available (while some topics remained untouched) about which self care and beauty products are the best, safest and most effective. So much so, that it was difficult to sort through it all let alone make a decision about which products were right for me. It was so confusing! One day on a long walk with a friend, several questions came up about this exact topic: do we need to worry about our personal care products? Then and there we coined the term “beautifully balanced.” Acknowledging that while, we will try our best to make “good” choices we will also accept that sometimes there is limited to no risk and much more benefit to traditional products.
In the Which one and Why (WOW) series, I want to explore the wellness and selfcare choices we make every day in our beauty and personal use products to answer this sort of question, which one is best and why? Does organic soap really matter? what about natural deodorant? and so many other similar questions. I want to present the actual data in terms of impact on health balanced with efficacy and risk so that you can decide which one, and why that product you use every day is the right one for you.
