COSMETICS & PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS
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A quote from the EWG:
"...the government cannot mandate safety studies of cosmetics, and only 11% of the 10,500 ingredients the FDA has documented in products have been assessed for safety by the cosmetic industry's review panel. " (Understand that the "cosmetic industry" is the fox guarding the chicken house.)
MAKEUP: WHERE AND WHAT TO BUY
The best I can offer here is to suggest a few sites that are working to help us make healthy choices. There is so little regulation on cosmetics, that you must NOT depend on what any given label claims. One of my golden rules is this: if they aren't willing to list every ingredient, they don't get my business. Now, there's no law saying they have to, so this can be a frustrating rule to live by. And that's why I depend on those far more knowledgeable, but it doesn't mean I won't discover 6 months from now that I've been mistaken in trusting a particular product.
Here are the go-to sites:
- Campaign for Safe Cosmetics http://safecosmetics.org A favorite site of mine. Click on the "Companies" link at the top of the page. The signed pact with cosmetics companies that the campaign refers to is not flawless. There is a big difference between "less toxic" and "non-toxic". There's just no way around the fact that we have to spend time educating ourselves. But it is a fantastic campaign, and is having a lot of success in getting big companies to make changes, despite how many times the companies claim they just "can't make makeup without chemicals". There are over a thousand (mostly small) companies listed, and that's an overwhelming number to search through, but I like the first one listed, "100% Pure". The ingredients lists I've read are indeed impressive, and I'd happily buy the products. Never escapable is the fact that we must read labels, and read more labels, and become familiar with what's ok and what's not.
- EWG's Cosmetics Database Here you can look up endless numbers of products and see how they rate in terms of toxicity. Just go to the database and put "eye shadow", for example, in the search box. Each product will be rated 0-2 for low hazard, 3-6 for moderate, and 7-10 for high. I try to use nothing above a "0". This is one of the many things that make EWG my number one favorite organization - they seem to work tirelessly and endlessly on our behalf. The database is getting about 5 million searches per month - women are waking up! (That number comes from Stacy Malkan of EWG, on one of her blog posts.)
- Organic Divas This one is a referral from the book Not Just A Pretty Face, so while I still see products there I'd not use, it is probably a very good place to start. A caution, though: one of the main product lines I see at Organic Divas ranks way too often in the 3-6 (moderate hazard) range at the Cosmetics Database.
WEBSITES & UNDATED ARTICLES
Note: In this first section are both websites in general, and various articles that have no dates. Articles that do have dates are organized by year farther down.
Coming Clean Campaign From the OCA - Organic Consumers Association
Many, many, many links here. An excellent resource.
Cosmetics, Parabens & Breast Cancer
Another article from the OCA
Parabens are EVERYwhere. In EVERYthing. Including all those seemingly lovely bodycare products in health food stores. Including your own body tissues.
Campaign for Safe Cosmetics
http://www.safecosmetics.org/
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is a coalition working to protect your health by calling for the elimination of chemicals used in the cosmetics industry linked to cancer, birth defects, and other health problems.
Chemical Industry Systematicallly Defeats Health Protections
http://www.ewg.org/reports/beautysecrets/chap1.html
Common Synthetic Fragrances Harm Wildlife & Humans
Where do all the chemicals from soap and shampoo go when they go down our drains?
The Healthy Person's Guide To Personal Care Ingredients
An awesome database from Terressentials in simple, everyday language that I can understand.
Nail Care Products Containing DBP (phthalates)
http://www.ewg.org/reports/beautysecrets/table1.html
37 products from 22 companies (including Maybelline, Max Factor, Christian Dior, Chanel, Sally Hansen, Oil of Olay, and many more.
Not Too Pretty - the report
http://www.ewg.org/reports/nottoopretty/
Phthalates
This is the main page - a great document from the ever-reliable EWG. Here are a few of the articles you will find there:
- Chemical Industry Systematically Defeats Health Protections
- The Dangers of Phthalates: Industry Spin vs. Fact
- Health Effects (PLEASE read this one, if nothing else.)
And please see the article "Gender-Benders" under the "2005" heading farther down this page.
Researchers Warn Consumers About Hazardous Ingredient In Nail Polish
http://www.ewg.org/reports/beautysecrets/
Growing Scientific Concern About Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP), Reproductive Age Women and Links to Birth Defects (Press release)
Skin Deep Database (from the EWG)
http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com
"Skin Deep is a personal care product safety guide with in-depth information on 14,835 products - 1,051 brands of lotion, lip balm, deodorant, sunscreen adn ot her popular products - and the 7,093 ingredients that form them. With its core of 37 toxicity and regulatory databases, SKin Deep provides safety ratings and brand-by-brand comparisons that can help consumers choose safer products."
Think Before You Pink
A Breast Cancer project. You'll find these articles and more here:
- Cosmetics Companies and Breast Cancer
- Corporate Cover-Up: Cosmetics Regulation
- Avoiding Parabens and Phthalates in Cosmetics
Toxic Shampoos For Children
From the Living On Earth show that airs on NPR (Nat'l Public Radio) Scroll down that page for the transcript of this segment, which is titled "Dioxane on the Defensive". There are a few related links at the end of the transcript. Or listen to the broadcast (though you'll have to wade through the other segments. Broadcast in Feb. 2007.
Johnson's Baby Shampoo and Hello Kitty products are a couple of the culprits.
WVE Women's Voices for the Earth
http://www.womenandenvironment.org/
"..a grassroots environmental justice organization. Our mission is to empower women...to create an ecologically sustainable and socially just society. WVE works regionally and nationally to eliminate and/or substantiallly reduce environmental toxics impacting human health, and to increase women's participation in environmental decision making."
Programs:
--Mercury and Reproductive Justice
--Campaign for Safe Cosmetics
--Assisting Local Communities
--Protecting Health: Policy and Regulation
2007
INFERTILITY: I'll Have My Cosmetics With a Side of Infertility, Please
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/66074/?page=entire
This is an interview with Stacy Malkan, author of the book every woman needs to read, "Not Just A Pretty Face", based on the extensive scientific research carried out by the EWG (Environmental Working Group).
Mineral-Based Makeup: Is it Safer?
http://www.enviroblog.org/2007/04/ask-ewg-is-mineral-based-make-up-safer.html
Good article over at EWG's Enviroblog. And the short answer is: NO. Also see EWG's research on nano-materials (linked to in the article).
Show Us Your Secrets Feb. 2007
http://www.ewg.org/issues/cosmetics/valentine/index.php
Fragrances hide toxic chemical ingredients
EWG Research Show 22% of All Cosmetics May Be Contaminated With Cancer-Causing Impurity Feb. 2007
http://www.ewg.org/issues/siteindex/issues.php?issueid=5005
New Product Tests Find Contaminant Above Government-Recommended Limits
2006
Hundreds of Personal Care Products Contain Poorly Studied Nanoscale Materials Oct. 2006
http://www.ewg.org/issues/siteindex/issues.php?issueid=5005
FDA Concerned About Hazards But Lacks Authority
2005
FDA Warns Cosmetics Industry to Follow Law on Untested Ingredients
http://www.ewg.org/issues/cosmetics/FDA_Warning/index.php
FDA calls industry's bluff on product safety. --Acting on a petition filed by EWG, the FDA has issued an unprecedented warning to the cosmetics industry that the Agency is serious about enforcing the law requiring companies to inform consumers about products that have not been safety tested.
Gender-Benders
Are you planning on being pregnant? Know anyone who is? Have a daughter? Wear nail polish? Face cream? Fragrances? (phthalates are used to make synthetic fragrances last longer) Shampoo? Hair spray?
This is about a cosmetics chemical, (phthlates), that alter male sexual and reproductive development in the womb. What toll does our obsession with "appearance" take?
(Article is dated Oct. 2005) There are many, many chemicals, supposedly proven "safe" in previous studies because they were not found to cross the placental barrier (never mind their impact on the rest of the body). Then the newborn body burden study was developed and proved the lot of them wrong. Just google "nail polish" + phthalates. Some nail polish companies have removed phthalates from their products, and are using a different chemical.
2004
USA Today Ad Names cosmetics Companies That Won't commit To Removing Toxic chemcials From American Products
http://www.ewg.org/issues/cosmetics/20040924.php
News release from Campaign for Safe Cosmetics -- A full-page ad in USA Today challenges cosmetics companies to come clean about whether they plan to remove toxic chemcials that are banned in the European Union from products sold on American shelves. The advertisement was placed by the Campaign for Dafe Cosmetics, a coalition of US health and environmental groups.
2003
2002
Are Your Beauty Products Killing You?
http://www.alternet.org/story/13530/
by Matthew Wheeland. "A new report linking birth defects and health risks with a chemical used in trendy cosmetics, gives a long overdue wake-up call tot he FDA, consumers and the beauty industry."
2001
2000
Group Links Nail Polish to Birth Defects (from CNN, regarding EWG report)
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/women/11/29/nail.polish/index.html
