Store Bought vs Natural Skin Care - Shelflife

A general rule of thumb is: if it sits on a store shelf there is usually (always) something in the product(s) that make this possible. Usually it is synthetic preservatives and a mix of hazardous chemicals. At best it is a low lever alcohol or sodium based ingredient.

The main reason for these preservatives is so products can be stored (sitting on shelves) for long periods of time before being opened. Also so products can be stabilized (i.e. unaffected by heat, cold, bright lights etc) and shipped world wide; because the aim of the game with cosmetic corporations is world wide domination to increase consumer consumption.

JOLI Natural Skin Care products cannot be found in stores for this very reason, they don't contain all those skin irritating additives. Though you may be wondering does this mean JOLI products are inferior to store bought products. Will they not last as long?

It might surprise to you know that store bought products don't last as long as you think once opened. All skin care and cosmetics have 'use by / best before' dates (whether they're included on the labeling or not). And how one person uses and stores a product differs to the next which means these dates can vary from person to person. It all depends on how you treat your products. Sharing with a friend or using a product on an infection (conjunctivitis, cold-sores) for example can reduce the product shelf life.

General* period mainstream products last after opening:

Perfume - up to 3 years

Powders, eyeshadow, blush - 1 to 3 years

Foundation - 1 to 3 years

Sunscreen lotion, SPF cosmetics – up to 1 year [one season only]

Bronzer – 6 months

Lipstick, lip gloss – 1 year

Pencil liners, eyes, lips, eyebrow - from 6 to 12 months

Liquid eyeliner - from 3 to 4 months

Mascara - 3 to 6 months

Skin care products, moisturiser, anti-wrinkle, eye creams, sealed container with dispenser - about 1 year

Skin care products in a jar - from 6 to 10 months

Nail polish - 1 year

Natural/Organic products – up to 6 months

*This information may vary depending on your source. Info from: checkcosmetic.net

You might have a mascara, eye liner, lipstick or moisturiser that you've had sitting around for over 10years thinking it looks alright therefore is still OK to use. To look at the product you can't see any bacteria growing and that is the beauty (or not) of all the chemicals added to skin care and cosmetics. All those toxins hide any signs of an ageing product.

JOLI products aren't any less superior than store bought products. JOLI products contain natural blends of herbal extracts and essential oils, as well as antioxidants, to preserve. Depending on how you use and store your products they can last for up to 12months, and if refrigerated products can last up to 3 years. Below is a Recommended Use By list for natural skin careproducts. These RUB dates depend on how you use and store your products, they also depend on you using the products as designed - i.e. daily, every 2 - 3 days, twice daily etc.

NAME	MONTHS
Bubble Bath Crumble Bar	12
Bath Salts Bliss	6 - 8
Bath Salts Serenity	6 - 8
Bath Salts Unwind	6 - 8
Deluxe Bath Serum	6 - 8
Deodorant Bar	8
Soothing Salve	12
Enliven Facial Scrub	6
Fluffy Lime Eye Cream	6
Facial & Body Wash	8
Fancy Cuticle Oil	6
Hair Styling Wax	6 - 8
Heavenly Bath Milk	4 - 6
Light Moisturiser	6 - 8
Lip Balm	3
Luscious Body Butter	6 - 12
Massage Oil	6
Moisturising Lip Balm	3
Purifying Cleansing Toner	6
Rich / Whipped Moisturiser	8 - 12
Rose Milk Bath Soak	4 - 6
Skin Serum	3 - 6

Keep in mind if you still have products sitting around unused after a some time then you've either most likely not been using them in accordance with directions or you didn't like the product enough to use it often. Time to discard all those old out-of-date products and start afresh.

  

What Causes Cancer

Recently I asked the question: "If you had cancer or thought you might get it what are some of the things you would avoid because you think they might cause cancer?"

I wanted to see the types of things people associate with cancer, especially after my little blurb about pink washing and the statement: "many of the people who attend or participate in these (cure for cancer) events USE products laden with chemicals."

Here are some of the things people listed:

Bleach
Fire retardant products
Cigarettes
Air fresheners
Spray on cleaners
Dry-cleaning ones (trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene, or PERC)
New no-iron linens and drapes (may release formaldehyde)
Processed meat
Obesity
Lack of ventilation in the home
Unfiltered water
Cooking (charcoaling) meat - it becomes carcinogenic
Chemicals in our food
Stress
Fast food
Package / ready made food
MSG
3 or more alcoholic beverages (a day / a week?)
Eating out of aluminum packaging
Eating / drinking out of plastic packaging - plastic bottles
Cooking in the microwave

Prevention:
No more than 3 servings of red meat per week (I've heard it should be no more than 1 serving per week)
Daily exercise
Low alcohol consumption
Low fat diet / keep weight down
NO cigarettes
Keep exposure to chemicals at a minimum

There are some very good points raised and many things people are aware of which is great. Air fresheners can kill pet birds and cause asthma so they can't be good for us to breathe in. Meat and even fresh vegetables contain chemicals and hormones. Drying cleaning chemicals are hazardous to our health, as are plastics and aluminum.

Interestingly... no one mentioned skin care or cosmetics which I find fascinating. Considering skin care and cosmetics are multi billion [1,000,000,000+] dollar industries, meaning we BUY AND USE HUGE amounts of these chemical laden products, I would hazard a guess that we expose ourselves to more chemicals via skin care and beauty products than anywhere else (though this is supposition, not fact).

Here is what our resident scientist explains about cancer:

"Every cell in the body has an oncogene that controls the rate and number of times that a cell can replicate. Each time a cell replicates, it loses a little bit of its oncogene, so the oncogene is like a fuse – when the fuse reaches zero, the cell cannot replicate anymore. Old age manifests itself when a sufficient amount of cells have ‘timed out’ and cannot replicate anymore.

Cancerous cells have a malfunctioning oncogene that allows the cells to replicate indefinitely at an uncontrolled rate limited only by the amount of energy the cancer cells can rob from the body. Often, these cancerous cells do not have a well defined form. For example, cancer cells growing in muscle tissue will not be muscle cells but rather an amorphous lump in the middle of the healthy tissue.

The problem with the idea of finding a ‘cure’ for cancer is that cancers are constantly evolving. Thus, even if a genuine cure was found today, it would be useless ten years from now (possibly even sooner). When healthy tissue undergoes a genetic change, this will only be an evolutionary improvement if it helps the healthy tissue to survive for longer. However, because cancer cells can already survive indefinitely (assuming an indefinite supply of energy and nutrients), any deformity in cancer cells will potentially benefit those cells by affording resistance to anti-cancer treatment. Therefore, not only is cancer constantly evolving, it can evolve faster than any healthy tissue, and faster than science.

Many have sought for the illusive ‘fountain of youth’, a substance or treatment that prevents the cells from aging (i.e. the oncogenes never time out). However, we already have the fountain of youth… it is cancer. Unfortunately this fountain of youth will kill by a means other than old age. What scientists should be searching for is not a way to stop cancer but a way to control it.

As for drawing a cell, it is like a round egg with a soft shell, filled with fluid (mainly water) with a mass of proteins and genetic material in its centre."

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What things do you avoid so that you won't get cancer? What things do think cause cancer? Love to hear your views.