My Everything Shower as a Low-Tox Girl Who Likes to Smell Good

A low-tox everything shower routine should be three things: affordable, highly effective, and mostly natural. If my shower essentials can’t be found at the grocery store or hide secret microplastics, I don’t want them. 

Anyway, you might be wondering what my credentials are for sharing this low-tox everything shower routine. Am I just another white girl on the internet? Did I formulate a revolutionary coconut oil face moisturizer in my farm kitchen? Do I scan every product with an app and actually know what the big words mean? No, not really.

The truth is, I’ve spent the last five years as a copywriter for holistic health brands. That means I research, write, market, and test new products for some huge brands in the beauty and wellness space. My job is to figure out which products are the most toxic, which ones you can DIY, and which expensive formulas are actually worth the price.

I first started building my low-tox shower routine ten years ago (a canon event for chronic illness girlies). Back then, it was such a balancing act to find a natural deodorant and hair care routine that fit the trifecta of affordable, effective, and natural. Now it’s a lot easier. 

That means if you’re on the fence about going low-tox, you can loosen your iron-grip on that Dove body wash. The days of multipurpose coconut oil for face and hair are over. We have much more research into low-tox products, and a much better awareness of what ingredients actually work. Some of them are even better than the toxic versions.

Chapters

• Shave
• Body Wash
• Body Exfoliant
• Moisturizer
• Armpit Care
• Face Care
• Hair Mask
• Waxing
• Foot Care

My Everything Shower Routine and Product Must-Haves as a Low Tox Girl

Let me de-influence you: We don’t need an array of colorful and heavily fragranced body products to be well-kept. Most of the glitter and pretty colors are just there to mask scents, not actually make our skin fresher, softer, or brighter. Plus, they’re hiding environmental pollutants and hormone disruptors that aren’t good for anyone. The products I share here actually work with your skin’s microbiome to improve its health over time.

Shave: Lavender Shave Soap

• My Product Choice: Dr. Bronner’s Lavender Shave Soap

My obsession with Dr. Bronner’s starts here, and I only get more annoying about it the more you scroll (sorry, not sorry). You can find this brand at Target or your local health food store, and the products are practical, affordable, and genuinely clean. 

Trust me, you don’t need some influencer-verified holistic shave soap; you just need this one. The most noteworthy thing about Dr. Bronner’s is that it’s not a detergent like most modern soaps. It’s made the old-fashioned way, with sugar and natural oils. 

Okay, a little moment for crunchy girl education. The heavy foam we’re used to in shaving cream, shampoo, toothpaste, and soap comes from sulfates. This is a class of chemicals known to disrupt hormones and irritate sensitive skin… and not actually get us all that clean. We’re so used to these chemicals that we associate bubbles with cleanliness, but this has more to do with the chemical reaction. Most natural products have less foam (including this one), and although it’s a learning curve, it doesn’t make you less clean.

Body Wash: Lavender Bar Soap and Sea Sponge

• My Product Choice: Dr. Bronner’s Lavender Soap

As a holistic girl, I’m fully on the bar soap train. There’s way less plastic waste, and bar soap is more concentrated than liquid body wash (which is mostly water anyway). Dr. Bronner’s again is my cult classic because it’s regenerative, fair trade, affordable, easy to find, and genuinely clean. I mentioned earlier that clean-ingredient body products tend to produce less suds. But if you like the bubbles, you can pair your bar soap with a natural sea sponge to make it lather.

If you’re not ready to let your liquid body wash go just yet, you can make some using Dr. Bronner’s liquid castile soap, honey, jojoba oil, and castor oil. Melly Sanford has an awesome recipe that I’ve used before — and don’t forget to pair it with the sea sponge for suds. 

Body Exfoliant: Turkish Bath Mitt and Moroccan Black Soap

• My Product Choices: This Turkish Bath Mitt and Moroccan Bath Soap

When people tell me that nontoxic products don’t get them clean enough, I just assume they’re buying the wrong stuff. And that’s totally fair, because the best low-tox products are hard to find (usually because they don’t have a marketing budget).

The Middle East is well-known for the Turkish hammam, a bathing ritual that’s been perfected since the Ottoman Empire. They use olive soap and carefully sewn exfoliating gloves that will give you the deepest clean of your life (trust me). I started using this ritual for stretch marks, scars, and dry skin, and it’s the only thing that works. 

The tools for a Turkish hammam are inexpensive. All you need is the bath mitt and olive oil soap, which are cheaper than a lot of Target products. You also need to understand how the ritual works, which is why I have a whole blog post with instructions.

Mosturizer: Body Oil and Tallow Balm

• My Product Choices: Toups and Co Body Oil and Tallow Balm

The molecular structure of jojoba oil closely matches human skin (it’s the closest plant match, anyway), which is why it’s the best kind to use in a body oil. Your skin won’t feel greasy or sticky, and body oils hold onto scent and moisture longer than some natural lotions. The Toups and Co oil is my favorite, since it uses jojoba oil and has such a beautiful scent lineup. The best time to use it is right when you get out of the shower (your body needs the water, too), and especially after any exfoliation.

Tallow balm is also such a deep moisturizer for your skin. Tallow is an animal-based ingredient that closely matches human skin, so it replenishes fatty acids, minerals, and antioxidants where our skin needs them most. The balm is a little denser than a body oil, so I use it on especially dry areas like knees, elbows, and the bottoms of my feet.

Armpit Care: Kaolin Clay and Tallow Deodorant

• My Product Choices: Organic Bentonite Clay and Toups and Co Tallow Deodorant

When I say I’ve tried everything to heal Lyme disease, I mean that I’ve literally ingested bentonite clay (and let me tell you, that stuff is hard to keep down). I’m grateful to be in the era of my life where I use clay as an armpit detox, not a liver detox.

Anyway, if you’re transitioning to natural deodorant, have a lot of lymphatic swelling in your pits, or just want to smell fresh, let me introduce you to the armpit detox. It’s a weekly ritual you can use before your everything shower to even out skin tone and get rid of any gunk. Just mix two parts water with one part bentonite clay and apply it to your armpits. Lean back and let your pits dry for a few minutes before removing with water.

Face Care: Jojoba Scrub, Bakuchiol Serum, and Tallow Balm

• My Product Choices: Schneider Goods Face Scrub, Toups and Co Bakuchiol Serum, and Toups and Co Tallow Stick

I’ve worked hard to cultivate this skincare lineup, and it’s so good. I haven’t found many facial scrubs that fit the standards of both health-conscious and gentle on skin (it’s really not best to use a sugar or salt scrub on your face). The Schneider Goods Face Scrub exfoliates using jojoba beads, and it smells like a fresh orange. I’ll use that twice a week.

As for daily skincare, I’ll cleanse with soap and then apply either bakuchiol serum (great for even tone and swelling) and tallow balm in stick form. I’ve tried a lot of the whipped tallow balms, and they’re definitely more fun, but they clog my pores. The stick with beeswax performs much better for me.

Hair Mask: Rosemary and Jojoba Oil

• My Product Choice: Little Herb Apothecary Hair Tonic

I use a herbal blend to help with post-COVID hair loss, and it’s become a much-needed part of my everything shower routine. As a curly girl, I constantly have product residue, and my hair just goes through a lot. Jojoba oil and rosemary have not only stopped hair loss, but they’ve also brought a lot more shine and general health to my hair. I’ll apply this about thirty minutes before my shower (it’s giving slickback) and then wash it out. You can purchase a pre-made serum or you can make your own at home with a few simple ingredients.

Waxing: Sugar Wax and Cyprus Oil

• My Product Choice: Sugardoh

Women spend about 60 hours per year shaving (???), and that’s where we really need to start with the feminist conversation. Women are sold these beauty industry standards that constantly distract them from doing things that actually matter. Anyway, text me if you want to talk about that (I’ll get off my soapbox).

Waxing is my happy medium between not feeling like a hygiene outsider and also not spending my entire life with a razor in hand. But I’m very picky about what I choose for self-inflicted pain, which is why I only use sugar wax. It’s what the ancient Egyptians and Persians used for hair removal, and it’s made naturally with lemon juice, sugar, and water. Generally, it’s considered less painful, too.

Unlike traditional bead waxes, sugar wax can vary in consistency. I prefer the thick kind that’s almost like dough because you can use your hands to apply it instead of wax strips. In my opinion, it’s a lot less scary when you’re sitting on the edge of your tub about to self-inflict pain.

Foot Care: Pumice Stone and Tallow Balm

My Product Choice: Pumice Stone, Tallow Balm, and Toeless Grip Socks

Not to be the person who writes about feet on the internet, but this wouldn’t be the first time. My growing-up years as a Virginia countryside wild child were shoes optional, so my feet are not in the best shape these days. Not to mention, I moved to a dry climate on purpose, and it’s not always kind to my skin. 

My routine includes pumice stone (for dry skin), tallow balm (to lock in moisture), and socks to seal it in for as long as possible. I’ve written about these pilates socks before, and they’re such a good option when you want to lock moisture into your heels and keep steady foot posture.

If I Were Starting My Low-Tox Journey All Over Again…

I’d pay less attention to what influencers do and spend more time researching ancestral bathing habits and remedies. We’ve lost access to knowledge about these skills, even though they’re still heavily practiced around the world. And trust me, societies wouldn’t keep the Turkish bath for thousands of years if it didn’t work. It makes our modern lotions, exfoliants, and bathing rituals look primitive (because they are).

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