As Americans, we are a culture of people that pride ourselves on being squeaky clean and smelling good! Some surveys and studies estimate that American women spend nearly $650 dollars a year on beauty products to keep us looking, smelling, and feeling attractive. When you consider the amount of products you slather on your body day to day, it only makes sense to take a closer look at what these products contain and how they impact the environment.
A great source of information on this topic is a nonprofit organization called the Environmental Working Group - http://www.ewg.org/. According to the EWG only 11% of nearly 10,500 ingredients in beauty products have been tested for safety. If you take some of your beauty products out of the bathroom cabinet and take a close look at the long list of impossible to spell or pronounce ingredients you may start to wonder - "what is this stuff I am putting on my body?"
Luckily, the EWG helps simplify the issue of beauty product ingredients by having a list of the top 7 "RED ALERT" ingredients that they feel are the most dangerous:
•1. Coal tar - often found in dandruff shampoo
•2. Fragrance- in almost everything!
•3. Hydroquinone - in skin lighters and facial moisturizers
•4. Aluminum - in many deodorants
•5. Triclosan- in almost all antibacterial products, such as hand sanitizers
•6. P-phenylenediamine- in hair dye
•7. Lead and mercury- Lead could appear in toothpaste as a naturally occurring contaminant of hydrated silica. Mercury is found in a cosmetic preservative called thimerosol.
Skin Deep is a safety guide to cosmetics and personal care products brought to you by researchers at the Environmental Working Group - http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/ Skin Deep pair's ingredients in more than 42,000 products against 50 definitive toxicity and regulatory databases, making it the largest integrated data resource of its kind. A database such as this empowers you with information, which is a good thing because the FDA doesn't require companies to test their own products for safety.
When you go into this database you can search specific products you use on a daily basis. For example, I pulled out my Oil of Olay Age-defying anti-wrinkle daily lotion- SPF 15 and within seconds I found that it was rated a "7". Products are rated 0-10. Products rated 0-2 are considered low hazard, 3-6 moderate hazards, and 7-10 high hazard. It was disappointing to find out that something I thought was good for my skin - anti-aging and with sun protection - was considered a high hazard and made me reconsider this product as part of my beauty routine.
In addition to the skin deep cosmetics database one of my favorite resources, the Gorgeously Green book by Sophie Uliano and website, has a great "cheat sheet" that breaks everything down that you should be concerned about - http://www.gorgeouslygreen.com/cheatsheet/. The Gorgeously Green website is a wonderful source of information about safe and splendid beauty products and if you choose to log in as a member you will often get emails with discounts on these products for you to order (I order things to be shipped to my family in the States and then pick it up when I am home visiting).
However, it is encouraging to find out that there are a lot of lovely products out there that are safe and effective. Here are some recommended brands to consider (all of which I have I personally use and recommend):
•1. Dr. Hauschka
•2. Jurlique
•3. Jason's natural
•4. Tom's of Maine toothpaste
•5. Lavera
•6. Mineral Fusion make-up
We hope this gets you to take a look at the ingredient list on your beauty products and we encourage you to look up some of what you consider your "essentials" on the cosmetics database mentioned above - it is really eye opening. The more you think about it, it just does not make sense to put things on your body that are intended to make you look and feel good but are potentially harmful to your health and ultimately introduces more chemicals into our environment.
In addition to the actual ingredients used in many products, think about the manufacturing of their plastic packaging, frequent double packaging and the use of virgin paper for the outer packaging. Thankfully, some companies are staring to change in this area. Some companies try to counter the damage done by business practices through supporting environmental organizations. For example, The Paul Mitchell firm has paired with American Forests to plant enough trees to offset all carbon emissions from the manufacturing of their Tea Tree products. Of course, an even better option is for companies to reduce the actual damage done. Brands like Aveda and Origins are finding packaging and energy alternatives. All of Origins outer packaging is 50% recycled paper and the cartons are manufactured using only wind- or hydropower. The freestanding style of Origins' stores utilizes low-energy MR16 lighting, an abundance of air-purifying plants and wood veneer from managed forests.
At the forefront of green innovation in terms of product and store design - in the beauty business or any business - is Aveda. For decades, this Minnesota based company (yeah!!) has concentrated on using green energy, renewable resources and plant-based alternatives to synthetic products. Its distribution center in Blaine, Minnesota is 100% wind powered!
So the next time you pick up a beauty product in the store, consider the contents as well as the package. There is a high cost of looking beautiful for our environment but there are choices that help both you and the environment to be beautiful! On a closing note when talking about "beauty" - sometimes when I look in the mirror and see a new wrinkle and find myself stressing about it, I remind myself of one of my favorite quotes:
Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.
~Author Unknown
Kris Colluro-Smith, AWC London
Anne van Oorschot, AWC The Hague
Environment co-chairs