I’m no professional, but after many boring months at home and way more YouTube videos later, I’ve developed a new passion for makeup. I was never very good at it and honestly never cared for it either, but once I started to experiment a bit I was hooked.
The brushes, the palettes, and all the fun little tools were so mesmerizing. I started to get pretty good at it and invested in really good quality products too. I knew that wearing makeup too often would make my skin breakout, so I was careful to buy clean products and use high-quality cleansers and removers in the process.
Even though I was meticulous about washing off my makeup and keeping my brushes super clean, I started to develop really dry skin and breakouts on my face and even my body too. I had no idea where this was coming from – I used all-natural products, I never slept in my makeup, I didn’t have any allergies – I was so confused.
I decided to take to the internet and try to figure out where these breakouts were coming from, and why my clean beauty routine was all of a sudden failing me. I quickly discovered that it had to do with my shower water. All tap water across the country must meet the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations. Although the US water supplies are considered to be among the safest in the world, more and more contamination is occurring on a rapid basis – which was likely the cause of my new skin troubles.
Even though our water is technically regulated, it’s not as regulated as we think. So many of the standards set by the EPA are decades old, and with growing contamination and pollution, those standards are no longer safe for us anymore. And the gross truth: the contamination causing my breakouts could have been caused by sewage releases, naturally occurring chemicals, and minerals, local land practices like fertilizers and pesticides, manufacturing processes, and malfunctioning septic systems.
No amount of clean products and natural cleansers was going to save my skin if the water I was using every single day was filled with chemicals and toxins that I didn’t even know about. I felt like I was being lied to! I needed to get to the bottom of what was in my water, so I decided to take a free water report to get the real facts. I plugged in my zip code and discovered that my local water sources had arsenic, nitrate and nitrite, chromium (hexavalent), radium, and 1,4-dioxane. I wasn’t even sure what those names were, but I was terrified.
With a little further digging, I learned that long term exposure to arsenic can eventually cause cancer and other diseases, nitrates are a product of animal and human waste decomposition, chromium is a chemical used in industrial products that can cause skin reactions, 1 in 10,000 people would develop cancer over a lifetime caused by radium, and 1,4-dioxane is another potential cancer-causer found in groundwater throughout the United States.
Among these chemicals, I also learned that so many other common ones found in water sources can cause skin cracking, burning and discoloration, rashes, and lesions…not to mention cancer.
Our skin is the largest and most absorbent organ on our body, and this whole time I thought I had to be careful about my makeup and skincare, but really, it was the quality of my shower water that was causing my breakouts this whole time. Although I was scared, I’m grateful that I was able to learn the truth so I could start making the changes to get safer.
If you’re ready to discover what toxins your skin might be absorbing every day too, take this free water report today.
