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Triethanolamine and me.

/ Goodbye Chicken / Leave a comment

I stabbed myself in the eye with a mascara wand yesterday as I was texting and applying said mascara at the same time. The mascara was a super-powerful polymer type that bonds and builds eyelashes like those of baby giraffe. It stuck to my eyeball, then stuck to my lids. Actually stuck my lids together. It’s the kind that requires its own brand of mascara remover (because of the super-powerful patented properties). So I had to feel around blindly–one eye glued shut, the other obscured by my tears–in the medicine cabinet to find the remover. I rubbed it all over my fused and smudged eye, and finally my lids opened. I did this all with one hand–because, texting.

I put the phone down, cleaned up and reapplied makeup to the left side of my face, including the super-powerful polymer mascara.

I then finished getting dressed in natural fibers. Reminded the babysitter to only use the new sunblock on the kids because that other stuff is full of chemicals. Poured myself a BPA-free to-go mug of organic coffee and headed out the door.

I sat in my car for a minute and Googled the ingredients of my mascara.

WATER (AQUA), PARAFFIN, POLYBUTENE, STYRENE/ACRYLATES/AMMONIUM METHACRYLATE COPOLYMER, BEESWAX (CERA ALBA), BIS-DIGLYCERYL POLYACYLADIPATE-2, C18-36 ACID TRIGLYCERIDE, PALMITIC ACID, STEARIC ACID, TRIETHANOLAMINE, VP/EICOSENE COPOLYMER, ACACIA SENEGAL GUM, HYDROXYETHYLCELLULOSE, PHENOXYETHANOL, TETRASODIUM EDTA, BUTYLENE GLYCOL, CAPRYLYL GLYCOL, TOCOPHERYL ACETATE, SODIUM LAURETH-12 SULFATE, GLYCERIN, POTASSIUM SORBATE, SERICIN, CALCIUM CHLORIDE, SODIUM HYALURONATE, TILIA TOMENTOSA BUD EXTRACT, CITRIC ACID, BHT, SORBIC ACID. [+/-: IRON OXIDES (CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499), ULTRAMARINES (CI 77007), CHROMIUM OXIDE GREENS (CI 77288), CHROMIUM HYDROXIDE GREEN (CI 77289), TITANIUM DIOXIDE (CI 77891)].

I read chemical Safety Data Sheets for a living. Some of that stuff is not good. But it’s really all about the dosage.

And my eyelashes. Seriously. They look like a baby giraffe’s.

I decided not to Google what was in the remover.

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Spirit Animals

/ Goodbye Chicken / Leave a comment

We had a chat about spirit animals, and the internet is not my friend.

I have no idea what it was like to answer kids’ questions before the internet.  I’m sure my parents just made things up, just as I do sometimes.  Mostly I answer the best I can and when I don’t know the answer, and there’s wifi available, we all huddle together around a screen and look together.  Of course, I find the right website first, before the screen is turned to the wider audience.  [This is a lesson I learned with Peanut when she was 4 and we were debating whether dinosaurs breathed fire. She agreed that, yes, dragons had fire breath, but refused to concede that dinosaurs did not.  For 10 minutes we talked about the difference between mythical and extinct creatures, until she told me, “I got that, Mom.  But dinosaurs breathed fire too!”  So, I went to the videotape…or rather internet.  I googled dinosaurs and fire, clicked the first result and, lo and behold, there was a creationist educational site that showed a dinosaur and dragon in a fire fight, both shooting flames from their snouts with some exceptional 90s-style CGI. The website explained that all those plants the dinos ate created methane gas that was ignited by electric eel-like sparks in mouths…or something like that. Peanut 1, Mom 0.  Now, I find the site first then share.]

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