34
August/September
It’s Your Life Magazine
I suffered. I was a young mom,
still learning patience and how
to love my two year old daughter
and baby son, but my hormones
really made it difficult to retain an
even keel, and unfortunately, my
two children suffered my hormonal temper more frequently
than I would like to admit. It was
a true hormonal storm!
By God’s grace, I was introduced to a fantastic doctor in
the early 90s who was studying
and developing her own method
for combating PMS and other
hormonal issues through vitamins and supplements, versus
synthetic hormones such as
hormone replacement therapy.
More grace was lavished and
I was hired by her to design
and typeset her newsletter, as
well as many other publications explaining new concepts
and her newfound methods to
treat hormonal issues naturally.
Basically, in not only being her
patient, but in working for her, I
got a crash course in the horrible
things that hormone replacement
therapy could cause, as well as
how to handle my issues with
more natural methods.
Though my work (and treatment) with my doctor ended
in the mid-90s, my interest in
natural hormone treatment did
not. I continued seeking ways
to calm the raging hormonal
storm. Some days it was awfully
difficult, and I didn’t always feel
sane, but I always felt confident
that this was the proper path for
me to pursue. It was proven to
me when my mother, who had
Isssue 3
been on hormone replacement
therapy for at least 10 years, was
diagnosed with triple negative
breast cancer. She succumbed
to it within two years of that
diagnosis.
With more fervor and drive than
I had ever had before, I continued to strive to live my life more
naturally. I began learning about
all of the toxins surrounding us,
and how those things can affect
our endocrine system. I learned
about how the synthetic ingredients and chemicals in store
bought cleaners, hygiene and
beauty products that we commonly use contain something
called xenoestrogens (substances that imitate estrogen in the
body) that leach into our system
through our skin.
What’s Making You Pretty Could
Be Working Against You
If xenoestrogens only imitate
estrogen in the body, why do
we need to avoid them? Don’t
we need estrogens in our body?
The answer is yes and no. We
do need the natural estrogen
that our bodies produce—the
estrogen that balances with
our natural progesterone and
keeps us on an even keel (not
to anxious, not to depressed, to
put it simply). However, too much
of a good thing isn’t necessarily
always a good thing, and that is
definitely the case with estrogen.
The problem is that xenoestrogens are found in so many storebought products that we can
throw our bodies out of hormonal
balance just by doing what we do
every single day: putting on our
makeup, deodorant, or moisturizer, or even washing our hair,
amongst other daily habits. We
can even get these endocrinedisrupting fake estrogens
through the foods we eat, especially canned foods processed
in cans lined with BPA (which is
linked to breast cancer). Xenoestrogens are everywhere, and
they don’t only affect women,
they can affect men by lowering
sperm count or causing cancer.
• Essential oils: lavender and
grapefruit (or any other citrus
or fruit scent)
• Carrier and other oils: grape
seed oil, olive oil
• Solid butters: shea butter,
cocoa butter, mango butter,
whichever you desire
• Herbs: arnica, calendula,
chamomile
What to Do
Armed with this new knowledge,
I began playing with recipes
that would allow me to be free
of those substances because I
knew that raising my estrogen
level would also raise my anxiety level, which has been a real
problem for me since entering
peri-menopause. I found that
making my own shampoo, hand
soap, perfume, salves and
balms, and even body soaps
were easier than I thought it
would be. Most of the recipes I
use take only minutes, and are
not at all expensive to make if
you have the right ingredients on
your shelf.
Recipes to Try
If you would like to begin making
your own hygiene and beauty
products, you can start to build
your shelf today with these items
to use with the recipes in this
article, as well as the articles
linked at the end of the post.
• Beeswax/beeswax pastilles
or Mountain Rose Herbs
emulsifying wax
in small, reclaimed jelly jars, or
really, any container that will hold
the number of ounces that the
recipe makes. I would recommend reclaiming some small jars
for your homemade products.
If those jars prove to be bulky
or you’d like to make individual
portions to sell or give away, you
can purchase small tins, or plastic or glass tubs online (I usually
get mine on Amazon.com). If
you’d like to get really fancy, you
can purchase lip balm tubes and
disposable droppers to fill them!
Fruity Lip balm
3 Tbsp carrier oil
2 Tbsp beeswax
1 Tbsp solid butter (like shea
butter)
10-12 drops essential oil –
grapefruit, blackberry, orange,
lemon, or any other flavor you
prefer
The three recipes I will be
sharing today are very similar
in method, but different in use.
These are products I use frequently each week, and they
are, of course, gentle enough to
use daily because they have no
chemicals in them.
For these recipes, you will need
a double-boiler, but you can just
use a pan with a metal bowl that
will sit on top of the pan—you
don’t need anything fancy! You
will also need some containers to
put your salves and balms into.
The salve and perfume balms
can both be poured and st