The danger in beauty

We are constantly bombarded by advertising of beauty products, in magazines, TV, and everywhere else we turn. But the long term consequences of some of those products are too scary to ignore. It all started with an article a few months ago and a little bit of research. It has me looking at beauty products in a whole new light. It seems many of them contain ingredients that are carcinogenic and this includes items at health food stores and products for children. I recently went through my bathroom and threw out at least 50% of the products that were in there. Now I spend more time in the store reading every single label. There are a few items in particular that you really should look out for: Parabens (methylparaben, ethylparaben(E214),propylparaben, and butylparaben); PEG's; dioxane 1,4 (most of the time this won't even be included in ingredients because it is considered a by-product. To read more go to http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_18112.cfm); Sodium Laureth Sulfate; phenoxyethanol (which is considered a safer preservative then the Parabens and is in many natural products);OXYBENZONE (BENZOPHENONE-3); and Benzyl Alcohol (Alcohol can be required by the USDA & FDA if no other preservatives are used even in products considered organic). The list can go on and on and some of these are worse then others. The parabens, PEBs, and Dioxane being the worst offenders.You can look up specific products at www.cosmeticsdatabase.com. They rate products on a 1 - 10 scale. 10 being the worst and go into details on why the products are bad. I think it is important that we are all educated on the products that we use every day and contact the companies to tell them how we feel. If we stand up to the worst offenders they will be forced to change their products and create better standards in the beauty industry. I hope this helps you feel empowered to make a difference in the cosmetic industry. There are many companies out there doing their best to offer safer products.

-Kendra