My Gluten-Free Shower

Since having to cut gluten out of my diet, I keep noticing gluten-related symptoms every so often with no explanation. Or so I thought. Le duh, your skin is your largest organ so everything you put on it eventually gets absorbed into your bloodstream. I keep pretty natural products in my day-to-day life but this year I've decided that, as I need things, I'll buy a gluten-free and/or natural version of it to see if that keeps those gluten symptoms at bay.

Feminine hygiene was the first to come up and good lord, that needs its own blog post. But over the past week it's been shower things. Shaving cream, shampoo, body wash. So those have been replaced and I feel better (mentally, anyway) about them.

So, what's in my new shower?

If you've followed me for a while, you know I did the "no-poo" method for well over a year. My hair responded to it really well for a while but then my body decided to attack itself with an autoimmune disease and all these new allergies and deficiencies and, surprise, the "no-poo" method began making my hair straw-like and my scalp insanely dry and itchy. I tried several other home recipes for shampoos but nothing worked. So, I decided to go back to a more conventional shampoo and finally found a brand my hair really likes - Desert Essence Organics. Man, I love this brand. No wheat, gluten, parabens, sulfates, etc. I recognize everything on the ingredient list. Everything I've tried has been amazing. I wanted to get the fragrance free line but no one local carries it. I'll have to get it online next time I need things.

Desert Essence Organics Green Apple & Ginger Shampoo. This smells so good. I had the Lemon Tea Tree shampoo and while it smells great and worked well, I developed a nasty citrus allergy about a year and a half ago, so that shampoo had to go as it gave me a scalp rash I'm still trying to heal and left things dry and itchy all the damn time. The site claims, "Sugar and Coconut Oil Cleansers gently lift and remove everyday pollutants from hair, while Organic Kelp and Nettle extracts provide iron, calcium, potassium, and other vitamins and minerals that absorb into and help strengthen each hair strand." So far, it cleans well and isn't aggravating my scalp further.

Desert Essence Organics Coconut Conditioner. This also smells so good. My hair has a tendency to hate conditioners. Most organic/natural ones weigh it down and make it so greasy that for months I didn't even use it - just shampoo and a little oil afterwards. That worked okay but the air is so dry here lately that it wasn't enough anymore. So, I'm giving conditioner a try again. This made my hair really soft and so far it's not weighed down or greasy. Jury's still out though.

Giovanni Purifying Body Wash. I am obsessed with activated charcoal lately. I love everything about it, so I picked this up (I wanted the DE one, but, again, nothing local here carried it - ah, Alabama). It has 3 steps (wash, scrub, and lotion), but I only got the body wash. It has activated charcoal, volcanic ash, acai, and other things in it. It makes my skin smell good but not overly fragrant, and it makes it so. smooth. It feels like you've exfoliated without scrubbing. Super soft and clean-feeling.  The ingredients look alright with only a couple questionable to me. The site says their stuff should be gluten-free but it's processed in a potentially gluten-contaminated area so cross-contamination is possible. Therefore, they cannot "explicitly guarantee products are gluten-free" which does worry me to the point where I probably won't buy anything else from them or repurchase this. But I've used it and my skin seems okay. Next time, I'll probably order a DE body wash.

Face Wash. I use the oil cleansing method, so this is homemade. I have a post on it from years ago, but I've recently changed my formula for winter which I haven't done before, so this is a bit of a trial and error at the moment. Usually I use castor, olive, jojoba, and tea tree oils. Right now I have avocado, sweet almond, jojoba, and castor oils. Switching them up has caused a bit of a skin purge, so I'm not sure if I'll keep this formula or try something different out. I'll do an update on my oil cleansing method once I figure this out.

Kiss My Face 4-in-1 Shaving Cream. It was a little odd going from the can of foam to pouring this out like a body wash, but this stuff lathers nicely and gets a real close shave. It has lemongrass in it but it doesn't seem to do anything with my citrus allergy. In the future, I'll find one with zero citrus just to be sure. But for now, I like this a lot. No razor burn, no rashes, and my skin is nice and silky afterwards.

Coffee Scrub. I've linked this before, but it's a homemade blend of ground coffee, coconut oil, and sugar. Such a lovely addition to showers but good god is it a mess when you're done. Grounds everywhere.