Look Past the Surface for Beauty Products (Star Tribune)

 

Printed in the Minneapolis, MN newspaper, the STAR TRIBUNE on November 2, 2009

LOOK PAST THE SURFACE FOR BEAUTY PRODUCTS

Many of the ingredients used in cosmetics are linked to serious health concerns.  If you don't want to wait for the jury to finish debating the risk, here's how to find safe alternatives.
Imagine applying a tube of lead to your lips, brushing mercury onto your lashes and slathering lotion with carcinogens onto your skin.  Doesn't sound too attractive, right?  But it's a scene that's unfolding in many U.S. households every morning.

As concern grows over the safety of commonly used cosmetic ingredients, so does frustration among consumers trying to sort out the dangerous from the divine.  When's the last time you read or understood the ingredients in the shampoo you lather on your scalp?  And how many people know that the ingredient thimerosal is made of mercury.

Most likely, your bathroom beauty products are made with not-so-gorgeous ingredients, including lead, mercury, parabens, phthalates and other known human carcinogens.  Many of these chemicals mimic human hormones, especially estrogen, and may disrupt your body's natural hormone system, which is responsible for directing cell division, gene expression, growth, reproduction, brain and nervous system development.

"It's really important for people to understand you can absorb chemicals through the skin," said Ann Louise Gittleman, a beauty expert and nutrition specialist. "Remember, the skin is an organ."

Studies show that people are absorbing these chemicals.  Parabens have been found in breast tumor tissue, for example.  This chemical preservative acts like the hormone estrogen in the body, and increased exposure to estrogen increases the risk of breast cancer.

The Food and Drug Administration recently released results from its study of 22 lipsticks.  All contained lead.
The Environmental Working Group, a non-profit consumer advocacy group, studied 20 teenage girls from across the country last year.  Their blood and urine samples contained 16 toxic chemicals commonly found in cosmetics and many of which are associated with serious health risks in lab animals, even at low doses.

"These are not trace contaminants like those found at part-per-million or even part-per-billion levels in food and water," states the Environmental Working Group's website regarding risky chemicals used in cosmetics.  "These are the base ingredients of the product, just as flour is an ingredient in bread."

The FDA doesn't approve cosmetic ingredients, aside form color and additives, and cosmetics manufacturers are allowed to use nearly any ingredient they wish.

Although there's debate over how much exposure is safe and how directly these chemicals are linked to serious health consequences, more people are choosing to skip the hemming and hawing and err on the side of safety.

Full article can be found here:

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/style/67769112.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU

 

Environmental Working Group Information Site: http://ewg.org/node/26958 

 

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