Yesterday I talked about what I use as an alternative to commercial facial cleansers - honey!
So maybe the honey thing is a little too extreme for you, but you don't want to use products that are filled with harmful chemicals either. Are you stuck? No!
Like I've said before, what works for one person may not work for another. Don't worry, you have options :o)
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit public-interest research group known for making connections between chemical exposure and adverse health conditions. Their #1 goal is: "To protect the most vulnerable segments of the human population—children, babies, and infants in the womb—from health problems attributed to a wide array of toxic contaminants."
This organization has made it easy to calculate your risk of exposure to potentially harmful substances through the personal care products you use. Simply go to the Skin Deep website and type in the brand name of your shampoo, conditioner, lotion, deodorant, toothpaste, soap, and whatever else you put on your body.
EWG uses a complex formula to assign a health-risk rating to each of the personal-care products:
You'll see a dual rating system that includes both a hazard rating and a data gap rating.
- The hazard score represents a synthesis of known and suspected hazards from more than 50 definitive databases. The hazard rating of a product can be higher than for its individual ingredients — it adds up the hazards of all ingredients, and is scaled higher if the product has penetration enhancers or other ingredients that increase skin absorption. This score accounts for more safety references and we show it on a 0-10 scale (with no decimals, 10 corresponding to highest concern).
- The "data gap" rating is a measure of how much is unknown about an ingredient. Not all ingredients have the same amount of safety data. For example, some ingredients may appear to have low hazards, but this may be due to the fact that they have not have been studied or assessed completely. Other ingredients may appear to have low hazards and have been thoroughly studied or assessed. This score helps differentiate between ingredients and products that have been studied to different degrees.
This site is awesome, I have used it so much! I really like how it lists all of the ingredients in each product so that I know EXACTLY what I am putting on my body and on my child!
If you find that your personal care products have a hazard score that you are not comfortable with, search this site and find something that is better for you!
It's important to remember that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not approve cosmetics and personal care products before they go on the market.
From the FDA website:
"The regulatory requirements governing the sale of cosmetics are not as stringent as those that apply to other FDA-regulated products. Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act, cosmetics and their ingredients are not required to undergo approval before they are sold to the public. Generally, FDA regulates these products after they have been released to the marketplace. This means that manufacturers may use any ingredient or raw material, except for color additives and a few prohibited substances, to market a product without a government review or approval."
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has great info on this subject.
One rule of thumb that I always go by is: the less ingredients, the better! Products that contain a long list of ingredients (many of which have long names that I can't even pronounce) tend to be filled with harmful stuff. I like it when I actually know what all of the ingredients are when I read the label! Let's keep it simple!
If you use a safe product that you love, please share!
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