Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Carcinogens & hormone disruptors in "everything" for the skin and hair : a link to a HuffingtonPost editorial

It's 7 months after my discoveries about how soaps and laundry detergent were causing my veins, "age spots" and wrinkles, and how shampoo and conditioner were causing my hair to fall out.
...and I'm amazed and so pleased that it all seems to be hitting the main stream media now!! Yeh!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/annie-leonard/ithe-story-of-cosmeticsi_b_653866.html

...Although this editorial doesn't mention methyl parabens in the list at the beginning of the article.

Parabens are in "everything" and are known endocrine disruptors, and have been found in breast cancer tumors.
Here's what I replaced everything with [including household cleaners]...Dr Bronner's Pure Castile Soap...and it does a better job on the stove top than the special cooktop cream cleanser did !!
...Ciao!

Sunday, July 4, 2010

What is in the smell ??

Be wary of anything that lists fragrance as an ingredient.

It's the legal way of putting nasty things into the cosmetics or soap without telling you what it is....so everything might read well...organic, green, plant extracts, etc, but if the word fragrance is there on the list, the ingredients are proprietary, and are likely to contain parabens .
Here's a link to an amazing site for finding out what's in our cosmetics [and a cute picture to cheer you up before you go there...]
I'll introduce you to it by copying in an email letter I received from Ken Cook of the EWG organization. EWG does fantastic work.

Dear vicki,
Read our fragrance report!Fragrances are designed to make you smell good, but is that all they are doing? In a recently released study of 17 name-brand fragrances co-authored by EWG and the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, we found that they contain secret ingredients, chemicals not listed on the label, with troubling hazardous properties.
We found 38 unlisted chemicals in our testing. The average fragrance tested contained 14 secret chemicals. Among them are chemicals associated with hormone disruption and allergic reactions, and many substances that have not been assessed for safety in personal care products by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or the industry's own safety panel.
Click here to see how many secret chemicals popular fragrances like Chanel Coco and Old Spice contain.
In 1973 Congress passed the federal Fair Packaging and Labeling Act. The law, which requires companies to list cosmetics ingredients on the product labels, specifically exempts fragrances. Since then, the vague word "fragrance" is all you'll find on the label. If there's anything to be grateful for in this, "fragrance" is a recognizable word that is easily avoided by label readers.
The FDA has not assessed the vast majority of these secret fragrance chemicals for safety when used in spray-on personal care products such as fragrances. Most have not even been evaluated by the safety review panel of the International Fragrance Association (IFRA) or any other publicly accountable institution.
Of the chemicals that have been tested, there isn't a lot of good news. The vague term "fragrance" covers chemicals that can be linked to reproductive damage, hormone disruption, and can trigger allergic reactions.
Click here to found out about the health effects of chemicals in fragrances.
Fragrances may be designed to make you smell better and feel good about yourself, but here at EWG we don't know how you can feel good when you don't know what you are putting on your body. We hope this new report will help you make better-informed choices about your fragrances.
Sincerely,

Ken Cook