Things change too quickly to be using an outdated list of ingredients to avoid!

In today's episode, I'm breaking down the brand new 2025 update to my most popular freebie - the Top 25 Toxins to Avoid guide. After a year of feedback from my Toxin Free in Three students and watching new trends emerge in the beauty industry, I've made crucial updates that every clean living enthusiast needs to know about.

The biggest changes include a new UV sunscreen ingredient that's sneakily appearing in "all mineral" products, an expanded "use with caution" list that addresses bio-individual needs, and a completely new section on microplastics and liquid plastics!

But this isn't just about adding more ingredients to avoid. It's about creating a more nuanced, practical approach to clean living that doesn't rely on fear-mongering or clickbait. Most importantly, I'm addressing the core issue plaguing the non-toxic space: the lack of clear standards and informed consent.

In today's episode, we're chatting about:

• The new UV sunscreen ingredient appearing in "clean" products (and why it matters)

• Why some ingredients deserve caution but not complete avoidance

• The truth about microplastics in cosmetics and their real impact

• How to practice discernment in the fear-based clean beauty space

• Why informed consent should be the foundation of your clean living journey

Read The Shownotes Here

Mentioned in this episode:

Wyld Notes

Get 10% off Wyld Notes Botanical Perfume: https://wyldnotes.com/discount/WENDY10?ref=KathrynOstapuk

  📍 Oh, welcome back to the Toxin Free Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Wendy, and today is a really exciting day because I've finally updated and I have a brand new 📍 top 25 toxins to Avoid guide. And why is that really important? Because. Things change all the time. Literally. Ingredients change all the time.

Companies change all the time. New trends will come into the beauty industry, and I really want my top 25 toxins to avoid to be something that is current and relevant and updated. So I'm gonna tell you what got changed, what got updated, why you need this guide for yourself if you haven't already downloaded it.

It is my number one most downloaded freebie. Let's get into it.

 Hey, friend. Real quick before we dive into this episode, there's something you need to know. This entire podcast is funded by you. You will never hear paid ads or sponsorships on this podcast, like not ever. Why? Because I believe in full transparency, and that means only sharing the things that I.

Actually love myself when you do hear me talking about something that I love and you use my affiliate links, you get a small discount and I earn a small commission that helps keep all of my content completely ad free, and that means that anything I talk about or share is aligned with you and me and not sponsors.

So to be clear. No weird promos, no brand deals, no paid ads, just the real stuff that I use, brands I love, and literally what I probably used this morning. So if something that I mentioned feels like a fit for you, click the links in the show notes. It's a win-win and 📍 📍 it helps keep this space truly ours. 📍

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It's like sweet and smoky and sexy, and sophisticated, and completely clean. I cannot wait for you to get your hands on these, and when you get them, hop on over to my dms and tell me which one is your favorite.

  📍 Let's start with why I even made this guide and what it even means. When I very first decided to start talking about toxins on the internet and teaching about reading labels, I was like, people just need a guide. They just need something that they can quickly look at, that they can start to learn what ingredients look like and know what to avoid.

But I want it to be relevant. There were lists out there that were like a hundred ingredients long, 60 ingredients long, and to be fair and honest, while those can be great. They're not very useful if you're like standing in the aisles at Target and you're like, I wonder if this is clean. I wonder if this is something that is non-toxic.

I wonder if this, you know, meets some, you know, some standard out there. Because again, there is no definition of clean. And so I wanted to create something that was really simple and user-friendly and really clear and screenshot audible. I wanted something you could screenshot have on your phone. And use as a very quick to use resource.

The other thing is I really needed a standard of clean. You know, there's a lot of people on the internet that are like, oh, this is toxic. This isn't clean, but there's no definition. Well, what does that even mean? I wanted to get really clear. If I was gonna read labels or say that something wasn't clean, I had to actually have a standard to compare it to.

And I also just wanted to make sure that everybody understood very clearly if Wendy said This product is not clean. What that meant was it didn't contain any of my top 25 toxins to avoid. So for me, clarity is really important. And if you are following anyone on the internet. If you're trying to learn more about non-toxic products and somebody is telling you, this is toxic, this ingredient is toxic, or this isn't clean, and they're not telling you why that is a problem.

Discernment is so important right now with all the fear-mongering that's happening, and you know, click bait is real. Listen, as somebody who. Spends a lot of time on Instagram and YouTube and making podcasts and teaching classes and having a course. I know that if I were to create content that was really scary or clickbait, that I would get a ton of engagement and I would get a ton of reach, but I think that's wrong.

I think that adding stress and fear to something that is already complicated and overwhelming for people is not the right thing to do, and I don't think it's helpful for anybody. So I wanted this resource to be. Very clear, simple, easy to use. But I also wanted it to convey what my standards were. So let me just really quick go over what you are going to see, what changed and what you can expect in this new freebie download.

And by the way, if you already have my top 25 toxins to avoid, go get the new one. You're gonna wanna get , the newest, latest, greatest update.

All of these updates came from requests from my toxin free in three students. I once a year teach a course. I have a membership and all of my students, you know, every week we do a q and a. I get a lot of feedback from 'em. And so every single one of these updates came from people just like you who are trying to learn about ingredients and non-toxic living.

And these are things that they said, Hey, you know, it would be really great if you updated this guide and you included. X, Y, and Z, or could you explain X, Y, and Z? So that's exactly what I did. So change number one, I actually added a new ingredient to the top 25 toxins to avoid list. You will notice if you are somebody who already owns this freebie download, and you go and you get the updated version, there's a new UV sunscreen ingredient added.

The ingredient is called I Butyl, octal Salicylate. And the reason why it's in there is because it's basically Octa Cate, which is already on my avoid list, and I'm gonna have an entire podcast that is just about this ingredient and kind of 📍 how the sunscreen industry sneakily is getting this into 📍 mineral sunscreens and then labeling them.

All 📍 minerals. So next week be on the lookout for that. I've got a whole new updated sunscreen guide coming as well, but I added this to the list because it's starting to pop up and it's starting to be used by really popular brands. And I think this is a good point to clarify. You know, these top 25 toxins are not every single toxin that's out there that you should avoid, but they are the ones that are being used.

They're the most relevant. They're the ones you're gonna find. Actually in products. And if there are any of these top 25 toxins to avoid, chances are some of those worst ones, you know, or some of the other ones that you would want to avoid that are not used nearly as often, they're gonna be included in those formulas as well.

Or it's gonna be a brand that you just know isn't clean anyway. So this list is really intended to be relevant today for the products that you see today.

The next thing you're gonna see is I expanded my use with caution list. So in addition to my top 25 toxins to avoid, I also have a section that I call 📍 use with caution. And in my course and with my students, I talk about conscious use or maybe limited use or individual needs for these types of ingredients.

So an example would be. Coconut Propyl. Betine, okay? That ingredient can potentially be contaminated with something that can cause like 📍 super irritation on your skin. And 📍 so a lot of people say, well, that's toxic. You should avoid it. That is irritating to your skin. And I have a counter argument to that.

And it's this, it doesn't irritate everyone's skin and you can get some that is not contaminated and it's completely fine. And this ingredient in particular is used a lot in the shampoo industry. So if you are somebody who is trying to switch to a really clean, plant-based, non-toxic shampoo, and you go through a few shampoos and you're like, oh my gosh, 📍 my hair is like, it's still greasy.

📍 It feels oily. 📍 It doesn't look clean, it feels dry.

There could be a lot of reasons for that. It could be your water. You might need a fil filtration system in your, in your house or in your shower head. Or maybe the brand is just not like mixing good with your water,

or maybe it is just your hair type and you just need to find the right thing. But oftentimes I find that people who switch to a brand that is using coconut Propyl betine, or its sister ingredient coconut Propyl hydroxy sutan, that. It's a surfactant, it's a washing agent. It's a cleansing agent, so it's a little bit stronger.

It's stronger than its plant-based counterparts. And so Evolve, for example, is a haircare brand that will use this ingredient. And when people switch to a shampoo that has that ingredient, they're like, oh, my hair feels so much cleaner. It actually feels washed. I actually like my hair. Oh, natural shampoo can actually work.

And so a lot of people really like and need this ingredient. It doesn't irritate them. It's not a problem at all. And so that's, you know, other people will say that's an ingredient you should avoid. Actually, that's a bio individual decision. Some people really need and love that ingredient in their products, and some people avoid it.

And so. It's not an endocrine disruptor. It's not gonna cause cancer. It is not immunotoxic, it's not gonna be toxic to your liver. Like it doesn't have anything that would make me say, oh my gosh, you, I think you should avoid that from an unbiased perspective. It is one of those ingredients that you should.

Use with caution sodium and laurel sulfate is another one of those ingredients that people love to say, you should really avoid it. I personally avoid sodium laurel sulfate. Why? 'cause it's a harsh sulfate. It can dry out your hair. It can dry out your skin. It can cause all kinds of irritation, but it is not, actually, doesn't meet the definition of what I consider to be toxic.

So if it's in a cleaner, for example, I literally could care less. That's not a, like Sal suds, which is a Dr. Braun's cleaning, product. Has it in it. I don't care. It's not toxic to my health. Would I use it in shampoo? No. But do I care if it's like cleaning my toilet? Nope. So my use with caution list is really those of ingredients.

That are just bio-individual decisions, and they're ingredients that the only issue is skin irritation, dry skin, things like that nature. But they're not under constructors. They're not carcinogens. They're not gonna cause cancer. And I think those should be choices that people make on whether or not they choose to use those ingredients.

And then the last change is I added a section. On microplastics, liquid plastics are used a ton in skincare. In cosmetics. There are a lot of microplastics being used in dishwash detergents and laundry detergents. And I did a poll of my audience and I said, Hey, these. Quote unquote plastics that are being used.

And they're everywhere, by the way, like copolymers, they're, they're in, they're in everything. We know there is a huge environmental problem with these microplastics, and we know that eventually those microplastics. That are a huge environmental problem do end up in our water supply and they do end up in our bodies.

We know that. So we know that there are secondary health impacts to using products that have microplastics, but. If you have a product that you love that let's say has a silicone in it, like a, a cosmetic, uh, let's say foundation. Let's use foundation as an example. 'cause you see a lot of silicones in foundation.

Okay. On my top 25 toxins to avoid, there are cyclic silicones. These are silicones that are known to cause hormone disruption, endocrine disruption, reproductive toxicity. These are the bad silicones. Okay? There is a whole host of other silicones that are used that give that blurring effect on your skin that women love in foundation, they just love the way their skin looks because it sits on top of their skin.

It gives them that blurring effect. And when you're using something that's completely plant-based, you don't get that same, look but it is technically a microplastic. Now, is it toxic to your health in the moment that you're putting it on your skin? We don't have any evidence of that. So if you want to make the decision to choose to wear, you know, makeup that potentially has liquid plastics in it, knowing that when you wash it off your face and it goes down your drain, it ends up in our ocean and it does contribute to the plastic problem.

Again, that's an environmental issue, but it's not necessarily. A direct health issue by putting it on your face. So I added a section on liquid plastics microplastics, where I kind of give my, what does Wendy think about all of this? And then I leave the decision up to you.

And that brings me to my final point. I think that   📍 📍 informed  consent is the core value that needs to be talked about more in this non-toxic living space. I think that too many people are 📍 just listening to whoever they're talking to on the internet and 📍 they're like, well, I'm just gonna do whatever that person says, 📍 and if that person says, this is toxic or this is 📍 bad, then I just.

I just believe them and I totally get that. We all have different levels of capacity to take on in information and learn new things, and so that's okay. If you're somebody that's like, you know what? I have somebody I trust and I just do whatever they tell me. Or maybe you're somebody who follows me and you're like, you know what, Wendy?

I only shop your Amazon shop. Or your toxin-free shopping guide, like that's it. Like I know you vetted them and I trust you, and I actually don't care and I don't wanna learn about these ingredients. That is totally okay. Like that is an absolute fine, appropriate way to approach this, especially if you're somebody who's just really overwhelmed with other things in your life and you just don't have the capacity.

But if you are somebody who has an interest in learning. Reading labels and understanding why these ingredients are harmful to your health, especially if you're somebody who has autoimmune disease or you're trying to get pregnant. You're dealing with infertility, you get migraines, you write, there's these health issues.

Where these ingredients can really affect your health overall, I really encourage you to use discernment and to learn for yourself. And my hope with this freebie download this Top 25 Toxins to Avoid Download is that it's the beginning of you learning how to understand and know how to make better choices for you.

I genuinely can't wait for this resource to get into everybody's hands. You can go over to   📍 toxins  to avoid.com. Yes, I bought that. URLI like have a thing with collecting website names, so I really wanna make it easy. Toxins to avoid.com. Head on over. Put in your name, in your email, and even if you've already gotten it and you have the old version, you will get the new version again, and I'd love to hear from you.

I'd love to hear what you think about it. I'd love to hear what you think about the new information that's in it. If you've got any questions, head on over to Instagram at Wendy toxin Freeish DM me. I love to hear from you. Download your resource. Share it on Instagram, tag me in it, let me know. You got it.

Let me know what you think.

That's it for today. This is a powerful step for you in your toxin-free journey.

Until then, stay toxin fresh, and I will see you next week.