Natural Body Care
Choose healthier personal care products to protect your family and the planet.
Choose healthier personal care products to protect
your family and the planet.
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By Claire Anderson
Americans slather, suds, scrub, polish and perfume with
wild abandon, choosing from an array of gels and creams,
pastes and foams. Thousands of products vie for our
attention with their promises of fresher breath, whiter
teeth, glossier hair and clearer skin. Fortunately, today
more and more cosmetic companies are also looking for ways
to avoid long lists of chemical ingredients and are
starting to put out products that are better for our bodies
and the planet.
Beyond the name game
Whether you know it or not, your body already is familiar
— and intimately so — with the alphabet soup of
ingredients on the backside of your shampoos, lotions,
shaving creams and deodorants. Your skin absorbs some of
what you slather on it. To some extent, says Ruth Winter,
author of A Consumer’s Dictionary of Cosmetic
Ingredients, all chemicals penetrate the skin, some in
“significant amounts.” Researchers have been
studying the effects of some cosmetic chemicals, and the
results show why we should read labels carefully and avoid
the use of some products.
In 2002, according to the American Association of Poison
Control Centers, more than 2 million poison exposures were
reported, 52 percent in children under 6 years of age. The
most common cause? Ingestion of household products, with
cosmetics and personal care products topping the list.
Allergies — ranging from itchy skin to burning,
watery eyes — are common reactions to cosmetics, the
American Academy of Dermatology reports. Studies show that
one in 10 people experience adverse reactions to cosmetics
in their lifetime.
Some cosmetics can make it difficult to breathe, especially
for asthmatics. Toluene, a chemical detected in every
fragrance sample tested in a 1991 Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) study, can trigger asthmatic attacks and also
can cause asthma in healthy people.
According to Dr. Samuel Epstein and David Steinman, authors
of The Safe Shopper’s Bible, some cosmetic
ingredients also are possible players in health problems
such as cancer, multiple chemical sensitivities and some
birth defects.
Cosmetic industry spokespeople say that human exposure to
individual substances and potential toxins falls far below
the levels at which scientists test each substance in
laboratory studies. However, no one is exposed to just a
single dose of one particular chemical. A 2003 study
conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) found more than 116 different chemical compounds,
including dioxins (byproducts of chlorine that have been
linked to cancer) and phthalates that impair our
reproductive function, in a wide range of personal care
products used by the adults and children sampled. Their
exposures came from routine, everyday use, from drawing a
glass of water from the tap to spritzing on perfume.
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