Tipster Tuesday!

I will be the first to admit that I'm relatively new at the whole going green way of life. In some ways I've always been a fan of all natural but as far as making permanent lifestyle changes and researching what is best for my daughter and myself I'm still pretty much a newbie. I'm telling you this so you don't think by any means that I'm a "pro" at this. I also know that for many people that the most daunting thing about going green is that there is so much information and so many things that you can do that it can be a bit overwhelming. The way I've decided to go about this is to pick a few key issues and go about researching that and incorporating changes into my life. It isn't about going all green at once. I'm not even sure that's possible. Its about making positive changes a permanent part of your life. As those changes become habit you can then pick up new changes to work on until they become habit and so on. For me I decided that the two areas I wanted to concentrate on where the items I was putting on my body and my daughters body as well as what we were putting in our bodies. I was horrified to learn that up to 60% of what we put on our skin is absorbed into our skin. Our skin is our biggest organ and we need to be careful about the way we treat it. That knowledge led me to trying to eliminate SLS (Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and its close relative SLES (Sodium Laureth Sulfate) from the body products we use. In learning about SLS & SLES and the ways of eliminationg it from your daily regiments I kept on hearing about castile soap. Castile soap is a very mild soap that doesn't contain SLS & SLES. You can even use castile soap as a base to make your own shampoo. Dr. Bronners seems to be one of the most popular castile soaps. From personal experience I can tell you that Dr. Bronners is a very nice liquid castile soap. I use the Baby Mild Liquid for my daughter as her shampoo and body wash. My daughter has INCREDIBLY sensitive skin (I can't even begin to stress how sensitive she is.) and since using the Dr. Bronners Baby Mild Liquid we've had absolutely no problems with her skin whatsoever! For my own use I love the Lavender as an everyday body wash and in the summertime the Peppermint is absolutely incredible! It makes you feel cooler! Can't beat that! I also love the almond scent and use that as a base for many of the cleaning solutions I make.

The next area I'm trying to address for my daughter and myself is what goes into our bodies. The first change I made is that at home my daughter only gets organic milk. I see absolutely no need for her to receive growth hormones or antibiotics in her milk! I'm also trying to switch my daughter off of colors and preservatives as well as high fructose corn syrup. This is proving to be a bit more difficult than eliminating SLS & SLES from our lives. I don't feel as though I've made enough progress to really even write about this yet. In all actuality I would love to hear from parents who have made this changes and any advice they have.

In googling SLS this evening in preparation to write this post I came across an incredibly informative article that I'd like to share with you. You can find this article HERE I must also let you know that I have not tried any of the recommended products.

So, let me know what you think about this post? Am I an alarmist? Is this something you've not heard about? Have you made this changes already? Got any advice?