Become a Soap Snob

Ditch deodorant and mass market soaps. Why start the morning assaulting the largest organ in the body - the epidermis - with a slew of chemicals. Switch to olive oil, essential oil or homemade soaps with fewer, recognizable ingredients. They are less drying, which can be less irritating to skin.

Skin also has a microbiome and harsh soaps strip the skin of good bacteria. That big lather comes from SLS - sodium laureth sulfate - and this foamy lather dries out skin by stripping it of natural oils. SLS doesn’t harm health or do anything bad, but no one needs sulfates to get clean. After making the switch to natural soaps, the scent of verbena or green tea will be appreciated more than a mass of suds because that tight, chapped and dry feeling after toweling off disappears too.

Where is the easiest place to buy natural soaps? Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods have beautiful soaps.