Skin Savvy: What You Don’t Know May Harm You

Toxic skin is not sexy.

You work hard to stay healthy: you have natural organic foods, you exercise regularly, and you try to manage your stress. But did you know there are hundreds of ways toxins can contaminate your body?

What You Don’t Know May Harm You

You may think your shampoos, conditioners, hair spray, toothpaste, lip balm, sunscreen, deodorant and makeup are harmless, but they are not. A look at the label will often reveal a long list of chemical ingredients, many of which can be hazardous to your health. Moreover, companies that claim their products are all-natural should contain ingredients that are easily recognizable as natural components and not a list of chemical names.

Unfortunately, according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), the government cannot mandate safety studies of cosmetics. Therefore, only about 13% of the 10,500 ingredients used in cosmetics and documented by the FDA have been assessed for safety by the Cosmetic Review Panel. The 89 percent of the ingredients that remain are in more than 99 percent of all products on the market.

What’s the point?

“What’s the point?” you may ask. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health reported that nearly 900 toxic chemicals are used in cosmetic products. According to a Cancer Coalition press release, “Cancer and health risk experts recently concluded that mainstream cosmetics and personal hygiene products pose the highest cancer risk exposures to the general public, even higher than smoking.
Women who used permanent hair dyes at least once a month experienced a 2.1-fold risk of bladder cancer relative to non-users… It is estimated that 19% of bladder cancers in women in Los Angeles County, California, may be attributed to permanent hair-dye use. The use of hair color products appears to increase the risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma… If these results represent a causal association, use of hair coloring products would account for 35% of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cases in exposed women and 20% in all women.”

Skin does not stop where hair growth starts. Whatever we put on our skin or hair enters the body through our pores, and travels through the entire body via our blood vessels. Go to EWG.ORG to find the least toxic skin care products.

And remember, the solution to a bad hair day is to wear a low cut blouse.