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Are Your Personal Care Products Toxic?
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Have you ever wondered what’s actually in all the various personal hygiene and cosmetic products that you apply to your skin or hair each day, and whether these products contain ingredients which could affect your health? The Story of Stuff project has released a seven-minute video called The Story of Cosmetics which thoughtfully examines this exact question, and provides insight about how to avoid toxins in personal care products through awareness and legal change.
The Story of Cosmetics was produced in collaboration with the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a national coalition which works for corporate, legal and regulatory reform that will better protect consumer and worker health as well as the environment. At the federal level, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has played a role in the introduction of a new bill by Congress House Representatives Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) entitled, The Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010 (H.R. 5786).
The Safe Cosmetics Act is designed to close loopholes in current federal law (The Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act of 1938) that allow the cosmetic industry to put unlimited chemicals in personal care products, most of which have not been tested for adverse health effects, and do not require manufacturers to list all ingredients on product labels. The new legislation would close these loopholes by giving the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) more authority to regulate personal care products.
As mentioned in the video1, the cosmetics industry currently makes the rules then decides whether or not to follow them. Voluntary participation in the industry-controlled regulatory program has led to the evaluation of only 20 percent of chemicals in personal care products. Cosmetic products, especially those with fragrances, may and do contain any number of toxic chemicals linked to cancer and neurological and reproductive toxicity, as has been shown through independent testing.2 While cosmetic companies argue that each of their products contains low levels of toxic chemicals, people use a combination of numerous personal care products each day. Such long-term, repeated exposure from compounded sources places us at risk for much greater toxicity than the cosmetic companies lead us to believe.
Protecting Ourselves from Toxins in Personal Care Products
The Campaign acknowledges that, without the right to know what’s actually in personal care products and that even “natural” products can be loaded with chemicals, consumers face confusion about which products are best for them.3 The Campaign advocates, as a preliminary measure, getting involved with the passage of The Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010, and has provided a pre-written letter in support of the Act which you may sign and send to your locally elected officials here. The next step involves making personal care product decisions based on what what we do know.
Simplify…
Since your skin is porous and can absorb toxins as well as nutrients, an ideal rule of thumb is to only put on your body what you would put in it. Because even the safest personal care products contain ingredients that we shouldn’t or wouldn’t want to consume, however, the most convenient option is to choose those that are the least chemically offensive. Using the least amount of products possible will help limit exposure to toxic chemicals; ask yourself, do you really need, for example,this hair spray, lipstick or fragranced shampoo? If so, do you need it every day or only on special occasions?
For those personal care products you can’t live without, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has established Skin Deep, an electronic product database through which you can learn about the known chemical toxicity of almost 64,000 cosmetic products. Even though product labels don’t give you all the information you need to decide whether products are safe, reading them carefully is a good place to start. Choose products with the least amount of ingredients and chemicals, and avoid fragrances altogether. Essential oils make for good perfume substitutes, and some even have healing properties (e.g. antiviral, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antifungal, and/or hormone balancing, etc.).
Product Awareness
For more detailed information about what to avoid and why, and what companies make safer products, see:
Legal Awareness
To learn more about the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010 (H.R. 5786), see:
For more information about the laws governing the cosmetics industry:
1. The footnotes in the Footnoted and Annotated Script of The Story of Cosmetics are a great resource for detailed information which supports the video’s message. 2. See "Statement of Jane Houlihan on Cosmetic Safety." Ewg.org, May 2008. 3. See The Story of Cosmetics: Frequently Asked Questions, Storyofcosmetics.org.
© 2010 Heart MD Institute, PA |
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