Scary Stuff!

Last night I went to a friend's house for an Arbonne spa party.  I had never really heard of it, but I found out that is an organic line of skincare, beauty, hair care, and even some other random items like energizing tea and men's shave gel.   I think that everyone was convinced they needed to go home and throw out every beauty product that they owned because of the scary information the sales consultants gave us.  I have a whole new-found appreciation for organic skin care products.  I have not gone through what I own yet, but holy cow.  Let me paint this picture for you...

Think about how you are driving down the road and see an animal--a big deer or raccoon, if you will--and you think how nasty it is and you drive on.  Well, the next day when you drive down that same road, the carcass is no longer there.  Where did it go?  Let me tell you.  To a Rendering Plant.

A rendering plant is a processing operation where dead animals are recycled into products from human food to biodiesel. The remains and waste from slaughterhouses are the primary contributors to these facilities. Heads, hooves, bones, blood, offal (internal organs) and anything else that cannot be used ends up at a rendering plant.
Carcasses of dead animals from livestock and confinement operations are the secondary contributors. A rendering plant will also take dead horses, llamas and other farm and zoo animals. Remains of dogs and cats, roadkill (deer, skunks, rats and raccoons) end up there as well. Veterinary clinics and animal shelters also rely on rendering plants for their euthanized animals. They also accept throwback or rejected meat from supermarkets.

Yeah, disgusting.  What's even scarier?  When the rendering plant cooks up all of the animal parts and rejected, spoiled meat, the mixture separates into solids on the bottom and greasy liquid on top.  Then, the rendering plants sell that mixture for a variety of things--including taking that greasy top layer of liquid and selling it to beauty product companies to use as filler in make up, shampoo, lotion, etc.  And then we put that onto our faces and bodies every single day.  Sick to your stomach yet? 

For all of you with little kids, Arbonne also has baby care products and I made myself a mental note to definitely remember them for the future when we have little kiddos because of this scary article about cancer-causing elements found in Johnson & Johnson baby products!  Most people think J&J is the go-to baby brand, when in fact many hospitals no longer use it because it's not considered safe.  J&J products have also been found to cause conditions like eczema in little babies. 

Overall, what was my take on it?  Well, I'm always a bit hesitant with any of these at-home, sales consultant party type of things.  They are usually always fun and you get good information, but then the catalogs come out and depending upon the sales consultant, the high-pressure sales tactics start.  Thankfully, last night the sales girls were really nice and were not laying on the guilt trip trying to make you buy more and more so that the host can get free stuff.  Or nagging everyone else to book parties, because that's the worst.   Although, with the information they shared about rendering plants, who wouldn't be pulling out the checkbook for this stuff?  I did end up buying while crying over how much money I was spending a few items--one for myself a couple as gifts.  


You now have permission to run to your bathroom cabinet and check every product label you own!