Beauty secrets (Beauty Health Risk)

My dad has been nagging me about the dangers of using many cosmetic/perfume and beauty products. As he could not really elaborate why, all his words has fallen on deaf ears as i nod silently to what he says. Until one day he shows me this article(to prove his point) did i realize that my beauty products can cause me lots of harm! And that the organic product that i bought and which are supposedly safe and preservative free - is not safe at all! In this article it shows a very important website call http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/ which state the product or ingredient which are hazardous. I realize that most of my perfume and my loves ones are all rank at least level 8 hazard over 10!! I swear that i will never buy perfume again - not that i can finish my present ones~! Below taken from Star Newspaper from Malaysia.

THE STAR Tuesday April 6, 2010
Beauty secrets
By TAN CHENG LI

How safe are the creams, lotions and colours that we apply on ourselves? The Skin Deep website will tell you.

I’VE been poisoning myself. I’ve just discovered that the Parisian fragrance which I dutifully spray over myself every morning has a “hazardous to health” ranking of “high”. And the gel that I’ve been smoothing around my eyes in the hope of reducing unsightly eyebags, is “moderately hazardous”, as is my shampoo. And they all contain ingredients linked to cancer, developmental and reproductive toxicity, allergies and immunotoxicity.

Looks like in my endeavour to look drop-dead gorgeous, I might well just, drop dead. We all turn to personal care products to look our best but sometimes all that lathering, slathering, powdering and painting can do more harm than good. Some of these products contain substances that are not only irritants, but are toxic to the body – and the environment – in the long term.
Dangers from grooming: We clean and primp using all kinds of products. There is now a website that tells us which product is safe, and which is not.

I learnt about the chemicals which I’ve been feeding myself with when I logged in to Skin Deep (www.cosmeticsdatabase.com), an online cosmetics and toiletries safety database created by the Environmental Working Group (EWG). It’s a great resource for finding out the toxicity of products you are using and to find products that are safe.

Sure, we’ve all been told countless times to always read product labels to determine what’s good and what’s not but often, the ingredient lists of bodycare products look like gobbledygook. Fortunately for us, EWG has navigated through the ingredients minefield, assessing them for hazardous contents, then listing down the information in the Skin Deep website.

Skin Deep has safety reports on more than 54,000 cosmetics and personal care products. They are ranked on a scale of one (safest) to 10 (most hazardous). The toxic effects of some 9,000 ingredients are also explained. It also lists down the top 20 brands and companies of concern. With such information, consumers can make informed decisions about what to buy and what to avoid.

We all think that the ingredients in personal care products have been safety tested before they are sold. But it is not so. According to EWG, the United States Food and Drug Administration does not test cosmetics for their health safety (with the exception of colour additives) before they go on the market. In the United States, a group called the Cosmetic Ingredient Review evaluates the safety of products but critics point out that it is industry-funded.

Product manufacturers often insist that levels of lead, parabens and phthalates found in cosmetics are so low they wouldn’t pose a risk, but activists worry about the cumulative effect of using multiple products.

“As people apply an average of 126 unique ingredients on their skin daily, these chemicals, whether they seep through the skin, rinsed down the drain or flushed down the toilet, are causing concerns for human health, and for the impacts they may have to wildlife, rivers and streams,” says EWG.

So the final advice from EWG is this: choose personal care products containing fewer ingredients and choose fewer products overall.

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