Exactly what is a toxin? If you consult the dictionary it defines a toxin as any poison. So what poison is lurking in your skin needing removal? Again, there is no answer from anyone in any corner of the alternative cosmetics or herbal worlds. What you may hear are more general, vague terms such as bacteria, airborne pollutant particulates from cars and city life, bad fats (this is a big lie in cellulite treatments), or faulty lymph systems that build up who knows what. Even fast food and secondhand smoke require purging in this part of the cosmetics industry. Listening to all of this is enough to make some people want to live in a sterilized, airtight bubble for the sake of whole-body purity, but there’s no need to take such a drastic step.
What isn’t ever explained is exactly what is being eliminated when so-called toxins are being purged. No one has measured how much (of whatever stuff it may be) is supposedly being removed during the process of cleansing. The reason no one is doing such testing is because many consumers don’t need facts to make decisions about their skin. And so we end up with a big myth that is good for business but not for you.
Without ever doing even basic testing, the people selling these detoxifying skin-care products or treatments leave it up to the consumer’s imagination, and they are adept at creating imaginary, unspecified toxins that are causing wrinkles, open pores, oily skin—you name the skin-care complaint—and then suggesting that purging the skin is supposed to help. That expensive spa treatment that wraps your body in herbs, salts, fragrant oils, clay, or minerals might feel good and for a short time make your skin feel smooth, but in reality no skin condition has changed: your wrinkles haven’t gone away, your cellulite is still there, your pores haven’t changed, yet your pocketbook is lighter. Now that’s what I call purging.
Many of these products claiming to detox the system, at least as far as the cosmetics industry and spa world are concerned, are fairly benign and do little, if any, harm. Overheating the body with saunas, Jacuzzis, and facial steaming can cause more problems than they help by damaging the skin’s ability to hold moisture, causing capillaries to surface, and increasing oil production. Putting fragranced salts into your bath can irritate the vaginal skin lining. Not good news but not terrible. Mostly it is just a waste of money, and following myths is not the best recipe for good skin care.