No, ‘Natural’ Does Not Always Mean ‘Good’

Hint: “harsh chemicals” does not means anything

Photo by Alison Marras on Unsplash

“I only use all-natural makeup because I don’t want to put harsh chemicals on my face”

“If you wouldn’t put it in your mouth, don’t put it on your body”

“I never take medications, I only use natural remedies”

While not inherently wrong or bad per se, all of the above statements fall under the same sentiment as Gwyneth Paltrow’s “I don’t think anything that is natural can be bad for you”; an attitude that is becoming popular everywhere and is particularly rampant on the internet.

This approach is naïve, potentially harmful (as good as whipped cream or bananas can be in your mouth, please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t put it anywhere near your nether regions; yeast infections are a thing, you know) and just plain wrong.

Thing is, we humans have a tendency to take everything to extremes: if the 50s and 60s were the heyday of tv dinners, harsh detergents and diet sodas, the last two decades have been the golden age of organic food, homemade cosmetics and ‘green’ cleaning products.

Now, far from saying you should go back to the post-war craze for synthetic stuff — when products like saccharine, aspartame and margarine were seen as an…