What are Endocrine Disruptors and my favourite clean products
Happy Spring friends!
Spring 🌱 has officially arrived here in the Northern Hemisphere (Happy Autumn 🍂 and return back to coziness to my Southern Hemisphere friends!)
How are you feeling with this change in season? What energies are you noticing within you or are you drawn to?
Well I don't know about you, but Spring has me feeling very much like a plant coming back to life! The sunshine, birds singing, and longer days are definitely putting a pep in my step and giving me this buzzy new energy.
I realized very quickly on my first poolside day in Palm Desert last month- after a long winter, how all I really needed was to feel the warm sun and light breeze on my face and body, how truly relaxed this made me feel and just how much it bolstered my mood and wellbeing. Sunshine is really the most underrated healing tonic.
So YAY for Spring! 🌱🌷
Outer Spring mirrors our Inner Spring of our cycle (the days following Menstruation up until Ovulation, so can be around Days 5-12 approx with Day 1 being the first day of your bleed). Typically we can feel this rising chi or life force stirring in us, as early as around Day 3. It feels a bit like fog lifting. A rise in energy, motivation, confidence, wanting to talk to people again, a rush of ideas and agency (want to DO all the things).
Cool fact that this general RISE in energy and mood correlates with the rising estrogen in our follicular phase, as a new batch of follicles are again recruited towards maturation (where usually only one lucky follicle will get to release an egg at ovulation).
If you chart your cycle, I'm curious if this sounds familiar or if you experience your Inner Spring differently?
With Spring bringing this new energy we are typically drawn to fresh starts, clean slates and new beginnings.
Enter Spring Cleaning!
I thought now would be the perfect chance to talk about one thing we can all do to improve our cycle health and overall health, and that's by making some easy switches in our daily routines towards cleaner products that are more hormone friendly and don't contain those nasty EDC's.
What are EDC's you ask? Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals also known as endotoxins or endocrine disruptors are chemicals that "block connections between (reproductive) hormones and their receptors, or they mimic hormonal activity, thereby tricking a hormone receptor into action. Either way, EDCs interfere with the normal function of hormonal systems.” Source.
EDC's can have a huge detrimental effect on our reproductive systems and menstrual cycles especially when you consider just how much even small exposures add up if these are in products we use daily. Think skincare, cosmetics, body and hair products, cleaning products, food, basically anything with fake fragrances and many others. Long story short: the products you use can be contributing to your PMS and period problems.
I don't want to overwhelm you here as of course it can feel IMPOSSIBLE to avoid and a lot of us then just give up. I want to encourage you to tackle even just ONE area to overhaul this Spring. This isn't about throwing everything out (unless of course you want to lol), especially with the ridiculous cost of everything these days, but it is about making incremental changes. Maybe the next time you are out of a product, instead of buying the same old, try swapping to a more clean hormone-friendly version.
And just how do you know if a product is EDC free and hormone friendly? I personally love this website for researching personal care products and trust their EWG Verified symbol www.ewg.org/skindeep/
The only downside to this site is they don't often have smaller brands on their database. They do have the option where you can input the ingredients of your product and it gives you a rating.
On this note, for years I have been passionate about searching out more natural alternatives to the products I use for myself and my family and I want to share some of our tried and true favourites with you here. These are not sponsored by the way, and are my honest and true opinions only.
1- Mint Cleaning Products - I love this (small biz, women owned and founded, local BC) brand for their all purpose cleaner, glass cleaner, floor wash, cleaning scrub (for toilets/counters/tubs etc!), even their all natural bug spray! I've signed up to be a Brand Ambassador for them as I love them so much! If you'd like to give these products a try, click on this link to get 10% off your first order: https://mintcleaningproducts.com/discount/AMBASSADOR10?rfsn=6994143.78ce52
2- The Bare Home- I love the gentle smell (no fake fragrances here, all scented with essential oils) of all their products, especially the hand soaps which is all we use in our house. Woman founded and owned, Canadian brand, and very environmentally conscious with their beautiful glass bottles and big refill boxes.
3- Young Living Thieves Household Cleaner- the miracle cleaner that does it all, super economical and effective, and has this yummy clove cinnamon smell. I dilute in amber glass spray bottles and use everywhere in my home.
4- ILIA Beauty - Super Serum Skin Tint with SPF and Limitless Mascara- I have only began using these two products this year and I am in love with both! Clean, skin centric beauty that works!!
5- K'Pure Naturals - again a brand that I have used and loved for years, woman founded and owned, small biz, local BC brand for all things skincare. I love their deodorant, moisturizers and essential oil sprays.
Do you have any tried and true favourites that you would add to this list? I'd love to hear about them. I have a couple of other brands I have my eye on to try next, if I love them I will definitely be sharing either here on my blog or on my Instagram!
