Lipgloss Anxiety

The year I turned 21 was the year Jessica Simpson launched a makeup line. I splurged the maybe $15 and bought myself a light pink sparkly lip gloss that smelled like bubble gum dreams. It was glorious.

It was around this time though that I started getting unexplained, out of the blue, panic attacks. Seemingly out of nowhere - when I was on my way out with friends or at work. I couldn't figure it out.

Until one day when I was picking up my bestie to go to a friend's house. I was running late so I hadn't finished putting my makeup on at home. I was feeling great. I stopped at the gas station to fill up and applied my makeup. No lie, the second the lip gloss touched my lips, the panic set in.

I didn't understand it. Did I just not want to be pretty?

It took me another 8 years to for me to figure out the toxins in my makeup were the root cause of my anxiety issues. I stopped wearing makeup except only when "necessary" but I didn't realize the other toxins I used. The makeup went, my self-esteem went, but the anxiety stayed, and so did hundreds of other toxins I didn't even know existed.

3 years after that - a full 11 years after the Jessica Simpson lip gloss - I understood. I've jumped in full force, doing research, listening to people's experiences, experimenting myself. Teaching others what I've learned. And everyday the anxiety fades away a little bit more, I can manage better and I feel better.

Do you know the story of cosmetics?  I sure didn't!