|
|
|
Think of your mascara that gives you those luscious lashes,
your lipstick for that dewy pout, and your blush for that hint
of excited colour. Think again.
Why do you care?
- Only 13% of the 10,500 ingredients documented for use in
cosmetic and personal care products have been reviewed for
safety by the cosmetic industry's Cosmetic
Ingredient Review Committee.1
- Concerns about some of these man-made, synthetic chemicals
are that they build up in our bodies, they are or may be toxic,
and they do or may disrupt hormones in human and animal life.
- Some common ingredients we use in our everyday products
likely contain phlatates, formaldehyde, petroleum, parabens,
benzene and lead and have been linked to breast cancer, reproductive
disorders, and other health concerns like asthma and allergies.2/3
See our Ingredients
to Avoid list.
- In Canada, there are no pre-market safety testing requirements.
Cosmetic companies are not required to submit information
on the safety of their products or ingredients, but merely
to notify Health Canada of the ingredients.4
So who is testing these products?
- The European Union adopted REACH
- a chemical regulation program based on the Precautionary
Principle - which requires new chemicals be tested for safety
by the manufacturers before they are put on the market. An
ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
The Know How
- You have to decide how you want to define "toxic".
Some ingredients may be of more concern or problematic for
you than others.
- Pick one or two ingredients to avoid and look at the labels
on your personal care and cosmetic products to see if they
contain them. See our top six
list.
- Make-up is the one area where many people look for performance
over purity of ingredients. Consider some natural lines that
deliver similar results. Check out the Green Guide's Product
Directory: Cosmetics.
- Mainstream cosmetic companies and natural and organics companies
may manufacture cosmetics and personal care products from
both ends of the safety scale.
- Just because any given product is made by a mainstream manufacturer
does not necessarily mean it's full of questionable ingredients.
Vice versa - just because a product is produced by a more
naturally branded company doesn't necessarily translate into
it being made only with pure and non-problematic ingredients.
Take the time to read each label of each
product you use to understand its composition.
- Almost 500
companies have signed the Compact for Safe Cosmetics a
pledge to replace ingredients linked to negative health effects
with safer alternatives. The world's largest cosmetics companies,
including, L'Oréal, Revlon, Estée Lauder, Gap,
Avon, OPI and Proctor & Gamble have not.5
Know and Tell
- One way to reduce exposure is to reduce the number of personal
care products you use each day. Considering Patti
uses 17 and Tamey 12 - should we consider dropping a product
or two?
- Patti began replacing her cosmetics with those that have
the least amount of synthetic ingredients, in particular
a synthetic preservative called parabens, due to their estrogenic
properties (they mimic estrogen - not a good idea for
someone who had breast cancer - an estrogen fuelled cancer).
- Tamey's replacing the make-up found in her cosmetic one
item at a time - as one runs out. Except her lipsticks that
she threw out one fell swoop - after researching the Kiss
Toxins Goodbye e-bulletin.
- The
Skin Deep product safety database, by the Environmental
Working Group, has just been redesigned, expanded and improved
and provides safety ratings for nearly 25,000 personal care
and cosmetic products. Plug in your favorite cosmetic and
personal care product and see how it rates in overall safety.
1 Skin Deep, Environmental Working Group
2 Fact sheet, Women's
Environmental Network, 2003
3 Solving
Problems Related to the Use of Cosmetics and Skin Care Products.
American Academy of Dermatology, 2006.
4 Cosmetics: Frequently Asked Questions, Consumer Product Safety. Health Canada, retrieved from Website June 1, 2007.
5 Press
release, Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, January 25, 2007
|
