Your skin provides enormous protection from germs.  But skin also allows certain molecules in and out.  It allows antioxidant in to protect against damage from the sun and allows toxins out through the sweat and oil glands.  But because the skin is so permeable it also allows environmental toxins in.  Personal care products are the largest source of  skin and mucous absorption.  Thirteen percent of the commonly used cosmetic preservative BHT is absorbed by your skin.  Many of the personal products we use everyday such as perfume, shaving cream, skin lotions, toothpaste, soaps, deodorant, nail polishes can be absorbed quickly and produce toxic effects especially when these toxic substances are combined. 

When products are left on the skin for long periods of time you absorb even more toxins with can accumulate and poison your cells and cause disease.  Most of the common products we buy to preserve and protect the skin actually contain chemicals that are damaging the skin.  Most of the personal care products we buy contain preservatives and colors that are know to cause problems.  A class of preservatives called parabens can damage deep layers of the skin worse than even a sever sunburn and can cause prematurely aging of the skin, which we think we can then reverse by using fancy products like wrinkle creams.