No chemicals on my skin

This post includes an audio version. If you prefer that you can listen here or on the JAL Audioblog Podcast

Over the years, I took many decisions toward a more healthy life. I took most of them because they made sense to me at that moment, but lately, I realized that I was taking those decisions more intentionally. I’m sure those decisions define who I am, so I think sharing them on my blog is a good idea.

Slowly we are moving away from nature, rarely going out into our forest and applying a quick solution to problems our body already knows how to deal with.

Indeed, modern medicine is the leading cause of our current longevity, but that is primarily thanks to surgery and other essential interventions and rarely to other minor solutions like daily meds.

I always thought that our body could cure itself of all the minor injuries we suffer and that there is no need to find any other fix but allow the body to act and give it time to apply the proper fix.

I will explain in this post the first decision that I made 14 years ago, around 2008. It was a minor decision, but In my opinion, it was the first step to a minimal way of living that I’m still designing and modelling.

Twenty years ago, I was wearing suits every day. It was common in my environment for engineers to dress formally in suits and ties. I know it doesn’t make sense now, but that was the reality back then. That dressing code and summer in Spain do not play well. The result is that, outside the office, where you do not have AC, you sweat and generally end up with the jacket in your hand and continuous discomfort. That scenario is the summary of the non-sense of the human condition. You are giving more value to esthetics instead of being practical. I’m happy that in modern companies, that behaviour is gone, and we are not judged for the clothes we wear but for how competent we are at our job and how good is our team game.

The solution to sweating all day was to use chemicals in the form of deodorant and other creams that were supposed to help with the odour and make you more comfortable throughout the day. One day I noticed the visible mark that those products were leaving on the shirts, and then I thought to myself, “What will be the impact on my body?”. That didn’t feel right, and I decided to stop that. I will never use deodorant again. That was around 2007.

Since that decision, I have never again used any deodorant or cream on my body. I clean myself every day, take care of my skin without abusing it, and wear the right clothes at every opportunity, thinking not about the aesthetic but the practicality of my outfit. Also, eating right helps enormously, but I’ll discuss this in another entry.

I took further steps. I shave my head once weak, and I do not use any special cream. Regular soap does the job quite well. Natural soap is the only product I use, and I try to get the best natural soap I can get, usually in bars. Then I use that for all my cleaning.

Using only natural soap in my body was one small step I took long ago, but it was just the first of many. I’ll explain them one by one in the following months.