Digest for Week-endng 2 July 2011

Last week, I wrote about how amazing our feet are and how important it is to give them the attention that we pay to other parts of our bodies. This week, I offer tips and information about your hands as well as results from some of the natural products I’ve either been using for years, or just recently tried.

Stay Healthy with Clean Hands

Just like the winter with the higher risk of colds and flu, this time of year provides lots of opportunities to catch and spread germs through dirty hands. Here are some tips for keeping hands clean this busy and public time of year.

Your Fingernails are a Window to Your Health

Disease and deficiencies in the body will show up as telltale signs on and around your fingernails. Here’s what they may be telling you.

How to Properly Maintain Hand Strength

Keeping your hands strong and able to open the pickle jar well into your years takes more than simple gripping exercises. Effectively keeping your hands strong is a two-way street.

Wrinkly Fingers May Actually be Functional

You know how unsightly the tips of our fingers look after they’ve been in water for an extended period of time. Well, it turns out that the pruny look may develop for a functional reason…

“Go”ing Natural on My Toes

After last week’s post about deciding to finally eliminate toxic nail polishes from my life, here are the initial results from one of the safer brands that I tried…

A Natural Stain for the Hair

In this post, you can see the results of years of using a plant-based dye for my hair and find out where to get the products.

"Go"ing Natural on My Toes

Last week, I talked about the toxic chemicals found in nail polishes and decided that I was finally going to go as natural as possible to eliminate more harsh ingredients from my daily life. And daily is true in every sense of the word because my toenails are painted for much of the year. Well, “Go Natural” is exactly the brand I chose to test because it was one of the safest I found.

I ordered their base coat, a color called Plum Baby, and a bottle of topcoat. Tonight, I tested out the application process. Like most polish jobs, the directions said to apply a thin base coat, two thin coats of color, then finish it off with topcoat.

Over all, I’m pleased with the results. The basecoat and topcoat went on very easily. The color did as well, although it was a little tricky to apply to my big toes without leaving ridges, so I had to work quickly. I was also happy that there was very little odor from the polish. In the warm weather, I will actually paint my nails outdoors for the best ventilation, but this was unnecessary with Go Natural. Good thing, because I did it late at night. Although the lighting wasn’t the best, I think it came out OK. It just needs a little cleaning up.

The real test now will be to see if it smudges while I sleep and how long the polish will last on my toes before it begins to chip. With traditional polishes, this can be a month or two and the first thing I will notice are my nails growing out. Can I expect this polish to last that long? We’ll see…

The Price We Pay for Pretty Toes

This post is for the women out there who love having painted toes, especially in the summer when we can actually see them! I include myself here because my toes are painted the entire summer (most of the year, in fact, because I’m reminded of them everyday in yoga class).

Over the years, I’ve slowly replaced personal care products containing harmful chemicals with safer and more environmentally friendly brands, however I’ve been slow to do this with nail polish. One reason has been because the spa where I go for pedicures doesn’t use safer brands. I guess I’ve picked my poison, so to speak when it came to my toes.

It’s a pretty potent poison, too, since many polishes can contain ingredients like formaldehyde, toluene, ketones, dibutyl phthalate (DBP), polyurethanes, parabens, camphor, and more…

A quick scan through the Environmental Working Group’s list of nail polishes had three brands at the top of the “on the safer side” list. The first is Acquarella, which classified as “fair”, Keeki, which had limited data but its health concern is low. Keeki appears to be a children’s polish. And Honeybee Gardens which was given a fair rating as well. Further down the list, the information was limited on some of the more popular brands or toxic chemicals, like organic solvents were in the products.

After deciding that I am in fact going to stop wearing toxic polishes, I searched for additional brands, and I decided to try Go Natural. It’s formulated with only a few ingredients (water, a latex emulsion resin, and non-toxic colorants), it’s almost odor free (can even use it on a plane!) and it claims to be chip resistant and long lasting. The one caveat is that it takes longer to harden than traditional, solvent-based laquers. I will be testing all of this myself : ) If I’m not happy with the results, I will move on to a new brand.

The things we do to look pretty… ; )