The Skin Care Police

Check out this product safety website, Skin Deep, which I stumbled upon yesterday. It rates skincare products, including makeup, by their level of safety.

Skin Deep: http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/

Skin Deep is a non-profit which operates independently from the FDA (which 'regulates' all products which touch the skin) & has nothing to do with the government. They have evaluated almost 25,000 products based on toxicity & regulatory issues. I’m sure their site has some of your favorites, check it out. You might just find that your treasured Lancome anti-aging sunscreen could potentially have adverse effects on your nervous system (who would have thought about this?).

I was shocked while searching for ‘mango butter’ when I stumbled upon a listing for The Body Shop’s Mango Body Butter (this used to be one of my all time favorite body butters in the winter) which rated the product as an 7 (10 being the most dangerous, 0 being not harmful at all). Check it out:
http://skindeep.ewg.org/product.php?prod_id=80219&refurl=%2Fwordsearch.php%3Fquery%3Dmango+butter%26

The site also gives my precious Olay Regenerist Regenerating Collection (www.olay.com) a big, fat 10!

One of my other favorite lines, Avon Anew, www.avon.com (yes, folks, Avon makes some great anti-aging products) rates mostly 3-7 with 1 product even rating a 10.
Jane Iredale’s mineral cosmetics (www.janeiredale.com) mostly ranged from 0 to 4, most with ratings of 1-3. Her pressed powders rated an impressive 0, while a very few of her eye & lip products earned 4’s.

Skin Deep gave my beloved Bare Escentuals (www.bareescentuals.com) ratings from 2-4. A few blushes scored 2’s while the rest of the line mostly earned 3’s , including all of BE’s lip products. Many BE eye products rated 4.

Check & see what your favorite products could be doing to your body: http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/

By the way, the site also has a link on their homepage to a full summary of sunscreens...what works & what's safe! I suggest taking a look over it for the sake of your skin.

Well, while I appreciate the ratings, and think it’s important that we all are aware of what we are putting in & on our bodies, I’m not sure I’ll be giving up Regenerist (by the way, not all the products scored 10, but the “collection” did) or Anew (or any others for that matter). I still eat French fries, & I’ll still use my Regenerist..but at least I know now the potential downfalls of both; and at least I’ll still be lookin’ good when I keel over from my coronary ;).

Happy 4th of July to all my American readers! Celebrate your freedom to choose what's right for your skin!

Also, a huge thank you to those who risk their lives every day so that we can all sit back, sip a beer (or a margarita), watch the 4th of July fireworks, & participate in the daily freedoms which most of us take for granted! Bless you..today & always!