Cosmetics

Aajonus stated flatly that almost all makeup contains some kind of kerosene derivative and formaldehyde, and that this applied to virtually every product sold under the cosmetic label regardless of what the label claimed. He extended this to soaps, noting that fifty to fifty-five years ago all soaps contained coconut cream, which he regarded as a genuine and safe cleaner, but that the industry had replaced coconut cream with petroleum-based compounds. He said that steroids, which he described as a product of formaldehyde, are now present in soaps, meaning that formaldehyde is entering the body through daily skin contact with hand soap, facial soap, and body wash.

He applied the same analysis to toothpaste and makeup together, grouping them as a continuous daily source of chemical contamination entering through mucous membranes and skin. His summary characterization was: "All contaminants. Everywhere contaminants. And it's all about what kind of money they can make. It's not about your health."

The kerosene connection also appeared in his analysis of vitamin supplements, where he noted that manufacturers routinely soak food extracts in kerosene or hexane during the extraction process, and that cosmetics share this same petrochemical family of ingredients. He used this to argue that what the industry calls natural processing still involves substances he considered incompatible with biological function.

Aajonus gave considerable attention to the history of lipstick as a case study in how a relatively non-toxic product was replaced by a genuinely dangerous one. He described in detail how, for roughly sixty years up until approximately ten to fifteen years before the time he was speaking, lipstick was manufactured using the fat from cockroaches. He explained that the white fluid extracted by crushing cockroaches was the only substance that manufacturers could find which adhered to the lips, took color from pigments, and did not cause significant contamination. He said the roach fat could be sterilized, pigmented, and used without producing serious harm, and he expressed a degree of equanimity about this, saying: "And that didn't poison you. I didn't worry about kissing a woman with lipstick then. Now I won't do it."

He described visiting a laboratory where he saw miles of shelving devoted to growing cockroaches. Workers would cause them to die by heat, crush them, and collect the white fluid. A polymer or solidifier was added to make the product stay on the lips. He noted that manufacturers listed the roach fat under its Latin name on the ingredient panel, so consumers had no idea what they were using.

His concern about this historical lipstick was not the roach fat itself, which he considered an animal fat that the body could handle, but the pigments, which he said were quite toxic and contributed to pancreatic cancer and breast cancer in women who wore lipstick daily over many years.

Once the industry transitioned away from roach fat to fully synthetic formulations, he regarded the product as far more dangerous. He said: "Now it's all poison. It's all chemical. Even with kerosene in it. Formaldehyde. People are eating that stuff all day long." He pointed out that lipstick is not merely applied but continuously ingested throughout the day as wearers eat, drink, and lick their lips.

Aajonus's framework for understanding cosmetic chemicals was embedded in his broader theory of how the body handles industrial toxins. He explained that 90 percent of the body's waste products, including the toxic substances absorbed through skin, are meant to be eliminated back out through the skin via perspiration. When the body is loaded with industrial chemicals absorbed from cosmetics, these substances have to pass back outward through all eleven layers of the skin to reach the pore and exit the body. He specified that to move through all those layers, the poisons have to be completely liquid, and that hair follicles in the pores make this process harder, particularly for men with more body hair.

He described the skin reactions that occur when these substances exit as highly variable and often alarming in appearance. They can produce rashes, hives, scarring, and many other presentations. He told his audiences not to be frightened when these reactions appeared and offered guidance on treating the localized area to reduce the damage to the skin, though he was clear that there would always be some scarring and damage, with the goal being only to reduce it.

The chemicals absorbed from cosmetics do not simply exit cleanly. He said that the lymphatic system, which is responsible for collecting and transporting the body's toxins toward elimination, can become backed up when it is full of plastics and industrial compounds, causing the body to dump poisons into the intestines rather than eliminating them through the skin. He noted that this process creates severe detoxification symptoms and that the lymphatic system is particularly difficult to get moving and working when it is loaded with plastic and industrial residues.

He was also specific that the toxins absorbed through skin from cosmetics can penetrate not just the surface but the subcutaneous fat layer and deeper. He described the body's strategy of storing toxins in fat as a protective mechanism, saying that wherever there is intense fat in the body, including in the brain, the greatest concentrations of toxins are found. This meant that cosmetic chemicals, like all industrial toxins, ultimately ended up stored in fatty tissue.

Aajonus identified aluminum in deodorant as a specific chemical toxin applied to the skin daily in most people's lives. He explained that aluminum is added to deodorants precisely because it holds the product on the skin and prevents it from being perspired away into clothing. His characterization was: "Of course it contaminates your skin at the same time." He made this observation in the context of noting that all conventional personal care products of this kind are chemical in nature, and that the ingredient purposes that make them commercially functional, such as aluminum's ability to block sweat, are the same properties that make them toxic to the body.

In his broader discussion of aluminum toxicity, he described it as one of the heavy metals that concentrates in hair and tissues, discoloring hair by destroying para-aminobenzoic acid, a B vitamin that regulates pigmentation, and causing gray hair in association with high aluminum concentrations. He connected this to the ongoing accumulation from daily deodorant use applied directly to the axillary lymph nodes.

Aajonus singled out hairspray and nail polish as two of the most acutely toxic cosmetic chemicals available, with consequences he described in terms that went well beyond the cosmetic context. He said that aerosol hairspray encountered in a hair salon can disrupt the intestinal bacteria, specifically E. coli, for as long as three months from a single exposure, and characterized it as "that toxic." He used this to illustrate how a substance inhaled in what seems like a casual grooming context actually damages the internal bacterial environment that governs digestion, immunity, and many other body functions.

Nail polish and nail polish remover he described as the most toxic substances available outside of strictly industrial settings. He stated that it is illegal to open a bottle of nail polish in an airplane or any closed environment, and that if a flight attendant detected the smell of nail polish being opened on an airplane, the situation would be treated as a serious hazard. He used this legal designation not as a curiosity but as direct evidence of the severity of the toxicity that is nonetheless applied to the skin repeatedly in ordinary cosmetic practice.

His recommendation for women regarding nails was that they avoid all nail products and use oils instead, specifically naming olive oil and butter as appropriate alternatives.

Aajonus discussed the transition from natural soap ingredients to petroleum-based formulations as part of the same general pattern he identified across the cosmetic industry. He noted that coconut cream, the original base for all soaps, was replaced by petroleum chemicals for economic reasons, and that the resulting soaps now contain steroids and formaldehyde. He argued that formaldehyde entering the body through daily skin contact with soap constitutes a genuine health hazard that most people do not recognize because they associate soap with cleanliness rather than contamination.

The source passages also document a list of specific personal care products containing the endocrine disruptors triclosan and triclocarban, both identified as toxins that Aajonus referenced in his newsletters. These included named brands across soaps, dental care products, and cosmetics: Dial Liquid Soap, Softsoap Antibacterial Liquid Hand Soap, Tea Tree Therapy Liquid Soap, Provon Soap, Clearasil Daily Face Wash, Dermatologica Skin Purifying Wipes, Clean and Clear Foaming Facial Cleanser, DermaKleen Antibacterial Lotion Soap, Naturade Aloe Vera 80 Antibacterial Soap, CVS Antibacterial Soap, Phisoderm Antibacterial Skin Cleanser, Colgate Total and Breeze Triclosan Mouthwash, Reach Antibacterial Toothbrush, Janina Diamond Whitening Toothpaste, and multiple cosmetics including Supre Cafe Bronzer, TotalSkinCare Makeup Kit, Garden Botanika Powder Foundation, Mavala Lip Base, Jason Natural Cosmetics, Blemish Cover Stick, Movate Skin Lightening Cream, Paul Mitchell Detangler Comb, Revlon ColorStay LipSHINE Lipcolor Plus Gloss, and Dazzle. He was explicit about his hostility to the marketing use of the word "natural" on any of these products, saying: "Lord, how I hate it when companies use the term 'natural' to try and fool us."

He also noted in his newsletter material that endocrine disruptors found in personal care products reduce hormones that normally give people the psychological drive to stand up for their rights, connecting cosmetic chemical exposure directly to behavioral and political docility in the population.

One of Aajonus's clearest and most absolute positions on this topic was that there is no such thing as a natural makeup. He stated this directly in response to a question about companies making herbal cosmetics, acknowledging that such companies exist but insisting that their products are still processed and that processing kills the enzymes, making the result chemical regardless of the starting materials. He said: "There is no such thing as a natural make-up."

He extended this to all commercial cosmetics labeled natural, saying that even the most earnestly formulated products in this category retain some kind of kerosene derivative or formaldehyde because of the processing methods used at the pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturing houses that produce them. He noted that supplement manufacturers face the same problem: they formulate with good intentions but have no laboratory of their own and must go to pharmaceutical chemistry labs, which bring their own chemical processes to whatever they are asked to make.

Aajonus offered concrete alternatives to cosmetic chemicals, working from the principle that the only genuinely natural cosmetic colorants are those derived directly from food plants without industrial processing.

For lip color, he recommended that his patients mash berries and apply them directly. He specified the following combinations and the colors they produce: blackberries or blueberries mixed with beet juice produce purple; beet juice alone produces red; and diluting with a light-colored berry such as mulberry adjusts the intensity. He described these as dyes that are easy for the body to absorb and that last longer than synthetic cosmetics when applied correctly.

For facial color more generally, he named clay and raspberries as the only natural cosmetics he could identify. He mentioned beet juice as a natural dye in this context as well.

He also told the story of women in the Auschwitz concentration camps who, when the Nazi guards would come around to select anyone appearing too pale and weak for work, would prick themselves and use their own blood as a facial colorant to appear healthier. He used this to illustrate his broader point that makeup is fundamentally about signaling health, and that actually being healthy through correct diet produces the genuine coloring that makeup attempts to simulate.

For the skin generally, rather than cosmetic products applied to the face, he recommended putting butter, peanut oil, or olive oil on the face before any cosmetic application. He qualified the olive oil recommendation by noting that people with very sensitive or very light skin should not use olive oil because it tends to provoke blemishes, small sores, or rashes in those individuals.

For nail care, he recommended olive oil or butter in place of nail polish.

He also mentioned a facial clay from a company called Teramin, spelling it out as T-E-R-R-A-M-I-N, available at www.teramin.com. He specified using their fine silk clay for facials, noting that the company also makes a grainier nutritional clay and recommending the nutritional clay. His protocol for using it was to combine half a cup, approximately four ounces, of the clay with four ounces of good mineral water, non-carbonated.

Because the skin is one of the body's primary routes for eliminating chemical toxins, including those originally absorbed from cosmetics, Aajonus paid considerable attention to the process of helping those toxins exit without causing additional damage. He recommended a hot bath every day specifically to help move toxins through the skin layers and out through the pores, explaining that the chemicals must be completely liquid to pass through all eleven skin layers and that the heat facilitates this.

He also described urine as a skin treatment with historical precedent, recounting that his mother, when she had acne as a teenager in the early 1930s, washed her face with her own urine on a neighbor's advice and found that the acne resolved. He explained this in mechanistic terms: urine delivers microscopic amounts of fat to the cells in that area so that when toxic substances come out through the pores, the skin is protected from irritation. Urine also contains acetates refined to very fine molecules that reduce the poisons to an acetate fluid, allowing white blood cells to recede and return to systemic circulation rather than remaining engaged in a prolonged local inflammatory response.

He noted that when chemical toxins exit through the skin, the person's own perspiration can cause irritation because the exiting chemicals are acrid and will dry the skin and cause sores if not removed. He was specific that this irritation is chemical in nature, not bacterial, and that the priority is removing the chemical residue from the skin surface through bathing, not sterilizing against bacteria.

Aajonus connected cosmetic chemical exposure to specific disease patterns in a direct way. He said that many of the toxic pigments used in lipstick contributed to pancreatic cancer and breast cancer in women who wore lipstick routinely. He identified the pigments rather than the roach fat base as the harmful element in historical lipstick formulations.

He connected the absorption of industrial chemicals through skin and cosmetics to the broader picture of cancer rising from one in a thousand deaths in 1955 to the dramatically higher rates of his era, attributing this to the accumulation of the approximately 80,000 total chemicals in industrial use, of which 60,000 are used in processing foods, plus the additional burden from cosmetics, soaps, and personal care products absorbed daily through skin.

He also described nose cancer in a woman in her 60s who came to him, in a case he used to illustrate how chemicals penetrate through the skin and mucous membranes around the face and nose, which is precisely the area subjected most intensively to cosmetic application. The conventional recommendation had been to remove her entire facial structure including jaw, and he described working with her using dietary and topical approaches instead.

Aajonus placed cosmetic chemicals within a broader argument about deliberate or at minimum negligent chemical management of the population through consumer products. He argued that all endocrine disruptors in tens of thousands of products reduce hormones that normally provide the psychological motivation to stand up for individual rights, connecting this directly to fluoride in water and to the endocrine-disrupting chemicals in personal care products. He cited animal studies in which subjects exposed to fluoride in water became so docile that they did not fight back when attacked and beaten by peer animals not subjected to fluoride, and noted that Hitler's regime used fluoride in concentration camp water for the same docility effect.

He extended this analysis to phthalates and BPA from plastic packaging, which he said act like fats in the body but when used in hormone synthesis produce the opposite hormone from what was intended: testosterone becomes estrogen and estrogen becomes testosterone. He described this as causing men and women in civilized cultures to become increasingly similar in hormonal profile. While he addressed this primarily in the context of food packaging and plastic containers rather than cosmetics specifically, he also noted that petroleum-based waxes in lipstick and other cosmetic products contribute to the same category of petrochemical hormone disruption.

Aajonus was specific that the lymphatic system is the principal system tasked with moving cosmetic and industrial chemical residues through the body toward eventual elimination, and that it is particularly vulnerable to overload. He described the lymphatic system as almost impossible to keep moving and working adequately given the standard American diet, and said that even on the Primal Diet it is not easy to eliminate plastic from the body without severe symptoms including skin rashes, hives, and scarring in many different patterns.

He explained that when the lymphatic system becomes backed up with plastic residues from synthetic clothing, cosmetics, and industrial sources, the body is forced to dump its poisons into the intestines rather than moving them to the skin for elimination. This creates a secondary cascade of digestive and intestinal problems on top of the original skin-absorption damage.

He said that 90 percent of very toxic substances are supposed to leave through the skin, and that the reactions visible on the skin when these substances are exiting represent the body working correctly, even though the appearance can be alarming and the tissue damage is real. He emphasized treating the localized skin area to reduce damage rather than suppressing the elimination process.

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