How Safe Are Cosmetics and Body Care Products?
June 4, 2009 by Tania
Filed under Better Beauty, Health & Wellness, Personal Care Products, Skin Care, Why Bother?
This article does a good job of explaining so many of the concerns I have about cosmetics and Body Care Products. If you are interested in digging a little deeper read the following article.
The government knows just about as much as you do about what you’re putting on your skin—that is to say, not much
Scientific American
Katherine Harmon
Published May 6, 2009
Cosmetics—makeup, creams, fragrances—have been around for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptian and Roman women famously caked on lead-based foundation. (Lead, a metal, can cause nerve, muscle and organ damage.) But surely lead-laden cosmetics have been phased out along with lead-lined water pipes, right? Not necessarily.
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversees the multi-billion-dollar-a-year cosmetics industry but it lacks the power to approve products or ingredients before they hit store shelves, even though their contents have been shown to enter the body.
According to the FDA, a cosmetic is anything used for “cleansing, beautifying, promoting attractiveness or altering the appearance.” An average U.S. consumer uses about 10 cosmetic products every day, including makeup, soap, shampoo, lotion, hair gel and cologne, says Lisa Archer, the national coordinator for The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics (CSC), a nonprofit advocacy group based in San Francisco and financed in part by the Breast Cancer Fund, a nonprofit organization. As a result, she says, people are exposed to roughly 126 different chemicals daily, many of which haven’t been thoroughly tested.
“We’re operating in a vacuum in terms of safety,” Archer says. “The FDA doesn’t even define what ’safe’ is, so it’s totally up to the discretion of cosmetic companies.”
Soaking it in, Slathering, powdering, spritzing. The skin is the body’s largest organ and its shield against the surrounding environment. But it is a porous protector, allowing some substances in and others—most notably moisture—out. Some compounds that are applied to the skin’s surface can be absorbed into the body, including the estimated four pounds (1.8 kilograms) of lipstick an average lipstick-wearer consumes in a lifetime, according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit public interest organization based in Washington, D.C.
To read the full article:
http://www.ewg.org/newsclip/Saving-Face-How-Safe-Are-Cosmetics-and-Body-Care-Products
Why Choose Greener Products
June 2, 2009 by Tania
Filed under Why Bother?
On the label of every 7th Generation Product
“you are making a difference” tm
“If every household in the U.S. replaced just one box of 48 oz. petroleum based powder laundry detergent with our vegetable based product, we could save 93,200 barrels of oil, enough to heat and cool 5,300 U.S. homes for a year!”
