Girls; The last time you swiped on that shiny new peach lipgloss, did you ever think about what really was IN it? Unfortunately, probably not. There are several toxins and poisnous chemicals in cosmetics everywhere! Parabens, toluene, even fragrance, plus a ton more, are all toxic to the body and can lead to health problems later on in life. Take, for example, a lotion. No, I suppose you wouldn't call lotion a cosmetic, but still, let's just use it as an example. Many lotions and other moisturizing products have something called a paraben in it, which mimics estrogen. This is just one example, although there are a ton more. One of the worst is toluene. Luckily, most products have stayed away from those REALLY bad chemicals, such as toluene, but most companies still have several bad chemicals in them. I'd say, at least 90% of products I own have fragrance in them. So, here's an example of how harmful this is. On a scale of 0-10, 0 is the best for you and totally safe, but 10 is the worst and obviously most likely to bring about health problems. So, take, for example, a scented SECRET deodorant. On this scale, this product is a 4, but Secret unscented deodorant? It's a 2. Just taking out fragrance cuts the number in half. Just because something says "organic, natural, etc" does not mean its safe for you to use. Fortunately, there are several companies, such as Yes to Carrots, Burt's Bees, California Baby, etc. that signed this contract saying all of their products are safe. Back to that scale thing we used, pretty much all California Baby products are a 0. It's hard to understand why all of these chemicals and toxins are in normal everyday beauty products, especially when several of them, such as shampoo, is so commaonly used! Essie nail polish? It's an 8 on the scale. That's bad. Fortunately, there are several websites out there that tell you different ways to stay safe, and I will tell you about some of them!
1. http://www.safecosmetics.org/ is the first one. This is the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, which features several harmful ingredients, as well as a full list of companies who signed the contract. This also features the video "The Story of Cosmetics" which is an excellent video that I suggest you go watch.
2. http://www.ewg.org/ is another good one. "EWG": stands simply for "Environmental Working Group" This website has a ton of articles about teens and beauty, as well as what's in different beauty products, and some ingredients to look out for. Not only does this website tell about cosmetics, but also about foods, radiation from cell phones, etc.
3. http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/ is another good website. This will redirect you to a site by EWG. This is excellent, you type in the name of a product and it tells you how bad it is for you, why, and you get to see what ingredients are in it and why they're bad. This doesn't have every single product out there, but there are several.
4. http://www.burtsbees.com/c/commitment/ I LOVE Burt's Bees lipgloss, this one I have right now is amazing. This is just a commitment promising that everything is natural. Also, if you have a Burt's Bees product and take a closer look at the container, you will see that they are Natural Products Association certified. Burt's Bees = awesome.
Bottom line: No, you don't have to stop using cosmetics and beauty products and makeup. However, I am just saying this as a warning to you, and I am trying to say that you should be careful about what ingredients are in ywhat you put on your body.
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