This is a quick short list of the common toxins present in most commercial personal care products.

• Mineral Oil, Paraffin, and Petrolatum - Petroleum products that coat the skin like plastic, clogging pores and creating a build-up of toxins, which in turn accumulate and can lead to dermatologic issues. Slows cellular development, which can cause you to show earlier signs of aging. Suspected cause of cancer. Disruptive of hormonal activity. By the way, when there's an oil spill in the ocean, don't they rush to clean it up - fast? Why put that stuff on your skin?
• Parabens - Widely used as preservatives in the cosmetic industry (including moisturizers). An estimated 13,200 cosmetic and skin care products contain parabens. Studies implicate their connection with cancer. They have hormone-disrupting qualities - mimicking estrogen - and interfere with the body's endocrine system.
• Phenol carbolic acid- Found in many lotions and skin creams. Can cause circulatory collapse, paralysis, convulsions, coma and even death from respiratory failure.
• Propylene glycol - Used as a moisturizer in cosmetics and as a carrier in fragrance oils. Shown to cause dermatitis, kidney or liver abnormalities, and may inhibit skin cell growth or cause skin irritation.
• Acrylamide- Found in many hand and face creams. Linked to mammary tumors in lab research.
• Sodium laurel or lauryl sulfate (SLS), also known as sodium laureth sulfate (SLES)- Found in car washes, engine degreasers, garage floor cleaners... and in over 90% of personal care products! SLS breaks down the skin's moisture barrier, easily penetrates the skin, and allows other chemicals to easily penetrate. Combined with other chemicals, SLS becomes a "nitrosamine", a potent class of carcinogen. It can also cause hair loss. SLES is sometimes disguised with the labeling "comes from coconut" or "coconut-derived".
• Toluene - Poison! Danger! Harmful or fatal if swallowed! Harmful if inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Made from petroleum or coal tar, and found in most synthetic fragrances. Chronic exposure linked to anemia, lowered blood cell count, liver or kidney damage, and may affect a developing fetus. Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) contains toluene. Other names may include benzoic and benzyl.
• Dioxane- Found in compounds known as PEG, Polysorbates, Laureth, ethoxylated alcohols. Common in a wide range of personal care products. The compounds are usually contaminated with high concentrations of highly volatile 1,4-dioxane, easily absorbed through the skin.
  
  Dioxane's carcinogenicity was first reported in 1965 and later confirmed in studies including one from the National Cancer Institute in 1978. Nasal passages and liver are the most vulnerable. Dioxane is easily removed during the manufacturing process by "vacuum stripping". Warning: It is a synthetic derivative of coconut. Watch for hidden language on labels, such as "comes from coconut".

Whether to vaccinate or not can be a difficult decision to make, especially when those on either side of the debate equally claim to hold the truth, and more often than not use fear to coerce you.

To understand where I come from - I have an innate faith that the human body is capable of dealing with any disease if given the necessary resources - physical, emotional and spiritual. In evidence, I continue to witness and hear of people overcoming serious dis-eases, even cancer, using natural means.

I also believe that to truly 'cure' something you need to 'fix' the cause - bandaids only cover up symptoms (having said that though, bandaids are helpful to relieve problems in the short-term while a long-term solution is worked on in some cases). 

My fundamental philosophy on nutrition, and hence health, is to consume what our bodies were designed to consume. The body will expend precious energy to 'dispose' of foreign items in the system, and failing that encapsulating the offending item into body fat etc. Any manipulation of our food should be viewed as suspect, particularly when non-food items are included - which today includes just about all foods on the supermarket shelf.

So what were our bodies designed to consume? Most researchers inclined this way look back to the diet of our ancestors. One such researcher was Weston A. Price, who meticulously studied natural/traditional cultures between 1900-1925 (Sally Fallon has since continued to develop his work and is currently president of the Weston A. Price Foundation and well known author of the Nourishing Traditions cookbook). Interestingly, he was a dentist, and through his research discovered that the health of teeth reflected the health of the rest of the body. He also linked the introduction of sugar and white flour to a subsequence decline in teeth and body health in all cultures. This has been supported over and over again since.

Michael Pollan (author of the Omnivores Dilemma and In Defense of Food, an Eater’s Manifesto) gives a wonderful down-to-earth summary of the dos and don'ts of food.