You Put WHAT on your skin?

You put WHAT on your skin!? This is the question that I've recently found myself asking a lot of people.
The skin is the largest organ on our bodies, yet we do all sorts of things to damage it: we expose it to too much sun without the proper protection, we cleanse with detergents so harsh that many of them include Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) as their main ingredient and then we slather on glops of so called "moisturizers", which actually contain more alcohol and water than anything else. So, since when did alcohol become a moisturizing agent?

This topic has been on my radar for some time now, but it really started to hit home when my niece (age 16) recently decided to go natural and asked me for advice on products to use. Before I dropped my natural knowledge on her, I asked to see what products she's currently using so that I could explain to her what was wrong with them rather than to just suggesting products for her to start using. I wanted her to be educated about what had been going onto her body. So needless to say, as this is indicative of most teens these days, she pulled out an arsenal of very popular hair and personal care products; all of which smelled absolutely delicious-but dont let the sweet scent fool you! We went through several containers, just looking at the top 5 ingredients (as the first few ingredients usually make up the largest percent of the product) and what our research yielded made my nieces jaw drop. ALL of her products contained some sort of seemingly harsh chemical; ranging from the very common SLS's to the very damaging diethanolamine (DEA), which is a known carcinogenic. After having her eyes opened, she promptly printed out a list of the top 10 ingredients one should avoid and asked to go to wholefoods in order to restock her once destructive products with more healthy options. Nappturality has coined the following article the '10 things to avoid putting on your hair', however, if you think about it when something goes onto your hair it is also being sucked into your scalp, simply by geological default; therefore, it's suggested that these chemicals be avoided all together-if possible.
I encourage you all to take a second look at the products that you have become accustomed to using over the years. Research the top ingredients within them; you may find that the migrain you get once every two weeks or that inexplicable rash that appears periodically may indeed be due to the combination of chemicals that is applied to your skin every single day.

So what do you think?
Is this all hog wash? Simply a way to deter people from going commericial? OR is there some validity here? Do you think that people who don't smoke (or indulge in other activities that could promote cancer) are still being plauged by illnesses simply because of the products they use?