Charcoal: from your bbq to your teeth
How did charcoal become so popular? First time I saw people were using charcoal in daily routines I was shocked. Few years fast forward and now I am drinking it in my latte every morning. Who is this person?
PHOTO CREDIT: BARLEY BAR A CEREALES
Originally, it was used for filtering water or for herbal medicine purposes. Now we use it to… whiten our teeth. How does that even make sense? Isn’t charcoal super black and super staining?
Let’s analyse it closely:
Activated charcoal is different than regular charcoal
Bad news, Santa’s carbon bag will continue to be useless. -Unless you know how to heat it at thousands of degrees and turn it into a diamond. -
Activated charcoal is some combination of bone char, coconut shells, peat, petroleum coke, coal, olive pits, and sawdust. Regular charcoal is the same thing + agricultural waste and dry biomass. Interesting.
How is it activated?
Lots of heat, basically. Once it’s activated, charcoal has a positive charge that will attract negative charges. Like a magnet, activated charcoal captures all the nasty stuff like a cleanser or a filter. COOL!
You can find activated charcoal in almost everything nowadays, and I really wanted to put some things through the test.
Activated Charcoal Testing
Soap bar from la Savonerie de Diligences
With activated charcoal and black spruce essential oil, this purifying soap absorbs excess sebum and neutralizes bacteria. Charcoal is perfect for oily or acne skin. It smells very nice… natural and subtle, which I loved. When using it in the shower my skin was kind of stained black at the beginning, but once I rinsed it, it completely washed away.
Exfoliating Facial Cleanser from Rebels Refinery
With activated charcoal and peppermint, this cleanser was intensely fresh. I loved it! It also contains ground olive and apricot seeds for thorough scouring. No micro-plastic ball, of course!
Charcoal Bath Salts from Bathorium
They help detox the entire body from the outside, in. Organic activated bamboo charcoal pulls toxins and free radicals from the skin while the spicy oils of basil and calming lavender soothe the mind, and oh yes…it is so relaxing that I fell asleep in the bath. That’s a first for me. The instructions are so nice that I had to make sure to add a picture for you. PS. I wouldn’t use the entire package as instructed, half is more than enough.
Toothy Tabs from Lush Cosmetics
A very unconventional way of brushing your teeth. A friend of mine had and she let me try them for this article. You have to chew one of those small tabs and then brush normally. Honestly, I didn’t like this experience. First of all, the taste is sandy and not fresh at all. It took me additional time to rinse my mouth, the sink and my brush because everything was stained black, and at the end my mouth tasted weird. In conclusion, yes, my teeth looked a little bit whiter, but also felt super sensible all day.
Last but not least…
Purifying Charcoal Face Mask from SOOAE New York
The one that couldn’t be left out of the list. Of course, there’s a facemask made out of activated charcoal. And while I thought the serum would be black, surprisingly…it wasn’t. The cloth was charcoal black, and it was drenched, yes drenched, in serum. The smell was nice, and the mask did the job of ultra moisturizing my skin.
It’s a natural way to detoxify your body
My skin was cleansed and super hydrated after a well deserved self-care ritual. First I exfoliated my face, then applied the facemask and finally I sunk in the bathtub for what felt like hours because I fell asleep. It was, to say the least, a very relaxing and much needed experience. I could get used to it.
If you are looking to do a detox – which I highly recommend after the Holidays – activated charcoal and lots of water will definitely do the job.
Let me know if you’ve tried anything charcoal activated and what are your thoughts on it!
