For Your Grand Kids

My shelves are stocked with natural shampoos, deodorant, face wash, cleaning products, organic this and organic that. Now that my family uses mostly natural products when I'm around big brand cleaners or highly perfumed items I sneeze and wheeze and suffer from nausea.

 It was almost a matter of preaching to the choir when I was invited to attend Shop and Learn with Gill Deacon, author of the national bestseller, There's Lead In Your Lipstick. Although I'm already on the same bandwagon as Gill, there's always more to learn about healthy living! The event was hosted at Whole Foods by Seventh Generation and not only did I come away with a great swag bag of Seventh Generation products, but also some interesting tidbits of information from Gill.

For example, how did all these nasty chemicals get into our every day products in the first place? Apparently after the second world war as a result of government subsidies for the petroleum and chemical industries, petrochemicals began making their way into our cleaning and household products. Now that's freaky deaky stuff.

A while back my family and I switched to a natural, non-scented laundry detergent. It seemed like a good idea but Gill reinforced this belief when she told the audience that most liquid laundry detergents contain an additive called optical brighteners. The brighteners give our clothing an 'artificial' glow that has nothing to do with our clothing being clean and the chemical can actually rub off on our skin creating a reaction to sunlight that looks like sunburn. Um, no thanks.

Finally, when it  comes to our babies, God's given them plenty of built in natural oils so their skin needs a lot less moisturizing, baby powder, and scrubbing then we might realize. It's a good idea to avoid chlorine, fragrance and other unnecessary ingredients in baby products.
 

 Gill's book is now on the top of my reading list. What mother doesn't want the knowledge to help their family live the healthiest lifestyle possible!? Thank-you Seventh Generation for hosting this event, Gill for your knowledge, and Cambie Whole Foods for providing child care!