60/40

Turns out 60% of what you put on your body gets absorbed through your skin.

I was visiting with friend and environmental sustainability consultant Rachael Dorsey McGowen recently and, after discussing the evils of parabens (more on that later,) we developed a motto: if you wouldn't eat it, don't put it on your body. And the inverse: if you wouldn't put it on your body, don't eat it. (This helps eliminate edible objects like, for instance, Doritos.)

The idea that 60% of anything I put on my body can be absorbed through my skin repulsed me. I licked my hand cream. Disgusting. I threw bottles of blue skin cleanser (from Bliss -- jam-packed with parabens, FYI) into the recycling. Bottles, bottles, bottles. So many bottles. So much plastic. If the creams I put on my skin were leaching into my body, are the chemicals in my plastics leaching into my food? My water? My body???

A Google later: Yes. They are.

Not only were the chemicals leaching into my food, which I was then happily ingesting, they were then mimicking estrogen in my body. MOCKING my estrogen.

Thus started Life After Plastic.