uck. chemicals. chemicals.

This week I have been figuring out what beauty products I can and can't use anymore and trying to find alternatives to those that I can't.

As soon as I found out about being pregnant, the first thing I did (other than tell family members of course) was went on-line to find nail polish that was safe for me to use. I had heard before that nail polish and nail polish remover weren't safe to use while pregnant. This is because of the chemicals found in the products, which can be very unsafe for the baby. I know nail polish might not seem like a big deal, but I've had my nails painted every day since I was 16, and doing my nails has become something that's become very therapeutic for me to do if I'm feeling stressed out or sad. So to me, finding safe nail polish was pretty important.

Luckily this was easy to do. After doing a basic search, I found a bunch of different companies/websites that sell nail products that are environmentally friendly as well as safe for pregnancy. I ordered a bottle from Peace Keeper Cause-Metics (www.iamapeacekeeper.com) which sells a line of affordable, vegan nail polish and nail polish remover. I also ordered a few bottles from Suncoat Products, who have a line of water-based polishes.

This led me to start thinking about the other beauty products I use every day and whether or not they are safe for me to be using. So, I made a list of the products I use every day (or at least frequently) and started researching. I found the website Natural Living for Women to be pretty helpful. Though of course you have to take everything with a grain of salt. There are some sites that basically say to not use anything while you're pregnant and in all honesty, seemed to me to be taking precaution a bit too far.

Skin Care--Proactive
I have been using Proactiv since I was 13 and it has always worked well for me. I searched for any information about its safety, and could never find a definitive answer. The active ingredient in Proactive is Benzoyl Peroxide, and I couldn't find any definitive proof as to whether or not it was harmful during pregnancy. It seemed like every site said some variation of "yeah, there's no proof it isn't safe, but you should still worry about it and not use it", which was more than a little annoying--just tell me whether or not it's safe! So for right now I've been continuing to use Proactiv, but I'll be sure to ask my doctor for sure when I have my first visit.

Hair Care
Basically, unless you use a prescription shampoo and conditioner, whatever you use to wash your hair is fine. This is what I assumed, so thankfully I don't have to make any changes in this area.

Hair Styling
To curl my hair every day I use old-school Richard Caruso Steam Rollers. They are fantastic, and because they just use steam, are completely safe.

This is not so much the case with my hair spray. Every day after taking my hair out of their curlers I use Aqua Net Extra Hold Hairspray. This stuff is heavy duty and is a remnant of my days as a competitive dancer. Of course, because it is heavy duty and works wonderfully well, it contains some pretty serious chemicals. Almost everything put into this hair spray is bad for the baby, so of course I promptly discontinued its use. I did start looking for some pregnancy-safe hairspray, but I've actually found that my hair holds the curl pretty well without it anyway, so as of right now, I'm not searching for any alternative. This may change when the weather gets more humid.

Every few months I get bored with how I look and color my hair. I have always used Feria by Loriel for this, and have rotated between "midnight black" "crushed amythest" and "chocolate covered cherry" (this is the one I use most often) for the past 8 years (has it really been that long!?). My natural color of hair is a really really dark brown which is actually quite pretty. Just, as I said, I get bored with how I look and hair is an easy thing to change. Now, I have searched around and not found any definitive answer as to whether or not hair color is bad for the baby. My mom told me that she colored her hair while pregnant with both my sister and I, though, it is important to keep in mind that this was over 20 years ago, and the chemicals may have changed. Also, my mom has always had short hair (usually above her ears) as compared to mine which when straight reaches the bottom of my sholder blades, so she would have been using a lot less color than I do

Makeup
So, lipstick contains lead. Fun, right? Because lipstick isn't ingested, the FDA allows lead to be present in the product. However this can be harmful to the fetus as it is developing. This is of course sad news to me, as I love to wear my red lipstick every day. However, as with everything else, I have found a few companies that sell safe lipstick, including this one that offers samples of their products.

Perfume
This was the hardest. Basically perfume contains awful chemicals that aren't good to have on the skin or be inhaled. So I immediately stopped using my usual Elizabeth Arden Red Door and J.Lo Glow perfumes. I found a few websites online that sell pregnancy-safe perfumes, but without being able to smell them before buying, I'm wary of making a purchase. Right now I think I'll just skip perfume till November. One less thing to buy I guess.


Doing all this research just made me feel a little exasperated about the fact that it seems like I can't use anything anymore. I mean seriously, why do we have all these awful chemicals in our products? I literally now stop at every little thing that is coming in contact with my body and think about the consequences of it, which I guess is a good thing, if not a little tedious. However, nothing is more important to me than having a healthy, happy baby.