Is your man’s body wash hurting his fertility?

male infertility, sperm, infertility, ivf

Probably.

I wrote a few weeks ago about women’s beauty products and how they are impacting our fertility. Well, I wanted to dig in a little deeper on men and how their products might be impacting them. We often think about infertility as a women’s issue. I’m not sure how that came about because men are 50% of the equation…but alas, our society still looks mainly to women as the ones responsible for making (or not making) babies. The truth is, somewhere between 40-50% of infertility cases are due to male factor infertility.

Here is some alarming fertility news: male sperm count in Western men has decreased by over 50% since the 1970’s! More than that, over 90% of sperm in typical young men are misshapen, which means that have two heads or two tails.

Quick fertility lesson: a two headed sperm cannot fertilize an egg.

I have a son. I have younger brothers. I have a hunky husband. I have friends who are raising boys. This is a HUGE issue. One in 8 couples struggle with infertility and that percentage is rising.

Many scientists are pointing to endocrine disrupting chemicals as a culprit. These chemicals mimic estrogen in the body, confusing the processes responsible for sex organs, hormone regulation…and yes, sperm. Exposure to these chemicals starts even when a baby is in utero!

If you want a breakdown of what these chemicals are all about and how to identify them check out this post.

Men need safer skincare, too! Their skin has different needs than women so we really shouldn’t just hand them our safer face cream and call it a day. Did you know:

  • Men’s skin is 25% thicker than women’s.
  • They have tougher skin due to slower cell turnover and frequent shaving.
  • Men have oilier skin than women because they produce more sebum.
  • Men’s pore size is larger, leaving skin more vulnerable to blackheads

Not to mention, most men won’t touch any product that is marketed as a woman’s product… (insert eye roll).

I was having a skincare convo with my little brother over the holidays and he mentioned really liking a brand of men’s skincare that promotes themselves as “natural” and “green”. He wanted to know my opinion so I looked them up… hello greenwashing! That stuff was full of harmful ingredients. But, I know very few men who are thinking deeply about their skincare. If I wasn’t in my brother’s ear about safer products he would not have given it a second thought. If I didn’t throw away all the junk my husband buys, he would not be asking me to find him a safer shaving cream. Ladies, we need to share this information with the men in our lives! We might even have to take matters into our own hands and toss their old junk and give them better products!

Okay, so here is the exciting news – there is a new line of men’s skincare that has NO endocrine disrupting chemicals (among other things, check out the list) and works and smells fantastic.

Introducing COUNTERMAN by Beautycounter!

male infertility, sperm, infertility, ivf, clean skincare

Counterman is a line of safer, results-driven skin care designed specifically for men. It features Sequoia Stem Cell Complex, all Counterman formulas help protect skin from every day stress. Plant stem cells have the properties and ability to self- renew; they never undergo an aging process, but instead perpetually divide to produce new cells. How cool is that?

Let’s check out the collection:

Do me a favor, go grab your man’s face wash and flip it over… do you see parabens on the list? What about methylisothiazolinone? EDTA? PEG? Or how about fragrance/parfum? …That’s what I thought. Toss it! You can always double check your products with the EWG Skin Deep Database too!

Save the sperm – shop safer 😉

XO, Nicole

A few informative resources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/health/male-sperm-count-problem.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/11/opinion/sunday/are-your-sperm-in-trouble.html https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6043754/