Body Care
Body-care products are absorbed straight through the skin, and many are packed with ingredients you'd never knowingly swallow — endocrine disruptors, formaldehyde, ‘forever chemicals.’ You don't need to fear your bathroom shelf; you need to know a handful of names, and choose better as you replace things.
The short list to avoid
A few flags do most of the work: ‘Fragrance’ / ‘parfum’ (a legal catch-all that often hides phthalates), parabens, phthalates, formaldehyde and its releasers (like DMDM hydantoin and quaternium-15), PFAS, oxybenzone, coal-tar dyes, triclosan, and harsh sulfates (SLS/SLES). Many are endocrine disruptors; formaldehyde is a recognized carcinogen.
What's changed — for the better
This is moving fast, in a good direction. As of January 2025, California's Toxic-Free Cosmetics Act bans a slate of these ingredients from products sold there, and in 2025 Washington adopted some of the country's strictest limits on formaldehyde in cosmetics. The industry is being pulled toward cleaner formulas — but plenty of the old stuff is still on shelves, so the label still matters. (EWG's Toxic Twelve is a good reference.)
How to shop without the stress
You don't have to memorize a chemistry set. Two habits cover most of it: be wary of the word ‘fragrance,’ and look things up — the EWG's Skin Deep database rates thousands of products in seconds. Simpler ingredient lists, and fewer of them, are almost always the safer bet.
Replace as you run out, starting with what stays on your skin longest — lotion, deodorant, foundation. Those have the most contact, and the most to gain from a cleaner swap.
When the mind needs somewhere to land
Everything in this wing points, in the end, to the same place — the breath, and the nervous system beneath it. It is why I built SOVA: a quiet companion for the moments in between.
- Today — a daily practice that aligns you before the day pulls you a dozen directions.
- Companion — a place to process any feeling, even the happy ones.
- Pages — a soft place to set your thoughts down and out of your head.
- The House — rooms of calm to step into, whenever you need one.