Product Reveal

I think the first time I thought about what I was putting ON my body, instead of IN, was when Katie was talking about natural makeup. Even though every woman knows that her skin soaks up the lotion she puts on, it hadn't occurred to me before to question what was in the lotion I was rubbing all over my body's largest organ once or twice a day. Lately, partly because of the yoga and partly because I'm trying to become more conscious of my impact on the world, I've really started to think about what Katie was saying about using natural products.

In teacher training last weekend, we talked about habits and routines, and the literature that we were reading mentioned skin care, that you should rub oil into your skin every night before you go to bed. One of the other trainees said that she uses almond oil on her face, and that you can see the difference the next morning. So on the way home, I bought a jar of organic coconut oil, and started using it as lotion.

Coconut oil is a good oil for cooking; supposedly because it's solid at room temperature, it has a high flash point and is slow to develop cancer-causing free radicals (same as ghee). It's also easier for the body to metabolize than olive oil, according to our teacher. It's not particularly good for my dosha, so I figured I'd try it out as a moisturizer and see what happened. Even though it's solid at room temperature, it's liquid at body temperature, so the easiest way to get in on skin is to scrape a hunk out with the back of your fingernail and just rub it into your palms; it'll turn into a nice-feeling oil, not too thin and definitely not like rubbing shortening into your legs. It's unscented, which surprised me. It's good, though, in that if you dislike coconut or don't want to smell like a tanning salon all the time, you don't have to!

It's been awesome. I don't know whether it's real or psychosomatic, but I feel... less toxic, maybe? I feel good about what I put on my body before I go to bed. And the morning after I first used it, my whole body felt like a baby's butt. In a good way. This is also the best oil we've ever used for back rubs, because it seems to have a saturation point where you don't need to keep reapplying.

So now I have to ask, if this unscented, hypoallergenic, organic, natural moisturizer works so well, why have I been rubbing chemicals into my skin for the last twenty-five years?