Color Us Beautiful? Hair to Dye For

Note: Yesterday's post was our most read ever, followed closely by August 10th's. Thank you for your interest and for letting OGT help with your food and personal care safety. As best we can, we will steer you clear of all the hazardous chemical soup out there.

Last week, my dear friend T. called and asked, "Penny, are we ever going to be able to leave the house?  And, what do you know about hair coloring??"

The answer to the first question...absolutely and, if we want to, we can "dance like no one is watching", dance a jig or dance an Argentine Tango (Oh, my... such a mesmerizing dance. You will have to indulge me. I just watched Assassination Tango and this will make more sense when you see the pix below!)

That is the beauty of all of this. Choose well. Worry less. You do what you know you can with the best info at that time and that's all you can do. No worries. You will naturally become less toxin-loaded, stronger and more immune to sludge. Just go out there and live and make better choices. Have a great day and help others to the same. And, you can be assured when even better things come up, I will share them with you in posts and under the tab "Our Little Green Book". Smart shopping will get a lot easier.

Here is the checklist so far that OGT has offered up in "Our Little Green Book" for all to enjoy a better quality of life: wholesome food check, wholesome skincare check.

Answer to the second question...not much. I actually had a whole hair post ready and pulled it after I ran the companies through www.cosmeticdatabase.com. Ugh...very disappointing. Scary. And, I was going to talk about curly hair, but there is something much more urgent at the root of things today.

Here is me as little girl age 3 with my first dance partner, a doll I still have. Oh, and my brother is there, too. The other picture, me again age 22. What you can't see is my then carrot-colored hair. Fast forward to about fifteen years ago and my hairdresser said, "You know we gotta get rid of this gray, right?" Bar none, I have ugliest gray hair imaginable. Whenever I had trouble with my skin, weight, etc, my mom would always say, "There's that throwback gene again for you. It's from Papa Dick's side."

NO love lost between my mom and grandfather. Mercy. But I loved him dearly. Anyway, on this gray hair matter, I have to agree. My dad was also a redhead but had the "good" gray hair gene. As he aged, his hair faded to a luminous peaches and cream then golden white. Mine is really bad looking and so, I "enhance" the good color that is left. However, I don't want to have brain fry or worse because of it. Enter my also concerned friend.

After a frustrating search, I did come up with one company that has products available at Whole Foods and online, Light Mountain. http://www.lotuspress.com/ltmtn.htm They are signers of the Compact for Safe Cosmetics although currently in the non-compliant status which means they have not provided all the necessary info, but, for now, the products they have on the database receive a "1" with a "0" being the least toxic to "10", most toxic. Most others I looked up were AWOL or off the charts.

And so here is my plan. My next appointment, I am taking in some and we will see how it does. The pink color of the bird is freaking me out a little though!  Please tell me Frenchie is not sporting their "Light Red"...

A big plus: I have my body working for me. That is: I eat foods that support my liver and kidney's detoxifying roles (ie. primarily whole, plant-based foods) and use skin care that supports my skin's ability to do the same. Those I can do and eliminate a lot of the constant daily barrage of chemicals that just come from Living 101. Good. Check.

Hair color I limit to once every 4-5 weeks and will still keep on turning over rocks to find a better solution. On my next trip to NYC, I will do some snooping. Already have my "walk abouts" planned! And so, there are even better things coming along. I just gotta find them!