Can your moisturizer be dangerous? What a silly question. Moisturizers are intended to benefit our skin aren’t they. How could a moisturizer possibly be dangerous?

Sad to say but there are many chemical as well as petrochemical ingredients which are used in so many of the big brand-name skin care products, including moisturizers, which we all take for granted. 2 examples of these chemical ingredients are sodium lauryl sulphate and mineral oil, a petrochemical.

Usually these chemical ingredients are used in skin care products such as moisturizers that so many women use because they are incredibly cheap. Mineral oil is the perfect example. Mineral oil is cheaper to buy than it is to dispose of.

There is an organisation called the Environmental Working Group which maintains a database of ingredients used in these sorts of products. This is called the Cosmetic Safety Database and provides information on the massive range of chemical ingredients used in so many of our personal products, including moisturizers, and even one marketed as the best moisturizer.

If you go to the Cosmetic Safety Database and search sodium lauryl sulphate you’ll find that it is listed as being linked to neurotoxicity, organ system toxicity, developmental and reproductive toxicity, cancer, irritation to the skin and plenty more. The same will apply if you search for mineral oil.

There are many studies that show that these chemical and petrochemical ingredients so commonly found in our skin care and anti aging products such as moisturizers can have health implications. There was a study published recently in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology which was called “Tumorigenic Effect of Some Commonly Used Moisturizing Creams when Applied Topically to UVB-Pretreated High-Risk Mice”. In this study it was demonstrated that, when applied 5 times per day for 17 weeks to mice moisturizers containing mineral oil and sodium lauryl sulphate “increased significantly the rate of formation of tumors and the rate of increase in tumor size per mouse”.

And it was also interesting that the researchers, (who were very surprised at the results because they were actually studying to see if caffeine caused skin cancer in mice) decided to ask the manufacturer of the moisturizer to manufacture another moisturizer without mineral oil or sodium lauryl sulphate. And when tested this further moisturizer showed no effect at all on the tumor formation or the tumor growth in the mice.

If you search at the Cosmetic Safety Database you can find, and read, many of the studies which are relied on by the database to produce the results.

Although it may never have occurred to you there is a wide range of health risks that you may be exposed to because of the use of chemicals and petrochemical ingredients in modern moisturizers and other anti aging skin care products, it is clear that the health risks exist.

So perhaps you should decide that it’s dangerous to use these products and you should swear off anti aging skin care products forever. However this is unnecessary. There are good alternatives.

There are excellent niche skin care companies which recognize this problem with the big brand skin care products and which take this as an opportunity to get into the anti aging market by manufacturing high quality anti aging skin care products such as natural moisturizers using only known safe and effective natural ingredients such as the oils from fruits and nuts.

The anti aging market is massive and there are billions of dollars at stake and it is extremely difficult for small companies like this to compete with the big brand names, but they do so by differentiating themselves by producing safe and effective natural skin care products that will produce the results you want without risking your health. These companies do not use the chemical alternatives used by so many of the big brand-name manufacturers despite the fact that these chemical alternatives are much cheaper.

It may take longer to find but if you manage to track down some of these natural skin care products, one range in particular, and try them you will be very pleasantly surprised at the results you get. Firstly you won’t be risking your health because they use only known safe ingredients and secondly you will find that the products are extremely effective. But it can sometimes be difficult to find these products because the small niche companies that manufacture them cannot compete with the big brands on television advertising and so do not advertise on television at all.

So the bad news is that if you use modern big name moisturizers the chances are that they are laden with chemical additives which, whilst very cheap for the manufacturer to use, may be putting your health at risk. The good news is that there are natural skin care products available which are highly effective at producing better skin health and which don’t use the chemical ingredients, including the best facial moisturizer.

On my website I write about these issues and offer my readers ways to find safer, more effective and more natural anti aging products that deliver the result wanted without the risks. Find the best face moisturizer without chemical ingredients at my website.