Toxic Waste On Your Face

Did you ever see the classic Batman movie with Michael Keaton and the legendary performance of The Joker by Jack Nicholson? The plot is simple; Joker is a bad guy, putting toxin chemicals in all of Gotham City’s beauty products. The movie is cinematically silly and dark, but not so far off from real life crimes against humanity. It’s just easier to spot the villain.

Over the past five years, there have been extensive studies on ‘ingredients’ in our face, body, hair, soap, and makeup products. The evidence is startling and the crimes unfortunately have no tangible bad guy to haul downtown. Many high profile skin care and cosmetic company’s products contain chemicals just as bad (if not worse) as lighting up a pack of cigarettes.

After testing eye shadows, perfumes, and lotions, many were found to include parabens (Toxic and allergenic synthetic chemicals and is used as preservatives in a lot of what we use), toxic metals such as mercury and lead, bronopol (in Mascara causes blindness), formaldehyde (skin care products), Hexamethylenetetramine (carcinogenic), Lanolin (contains DDT), Naphthol (coal tar), Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (In nearly every shampoo, cleanser, toothpaste, residual levels linked to heart, liver, lungs, and brain disorders), Acid Benzyl Ester (aka parabens linked to breast cancer and low sperm count), and finally fragrance (nearly all synthetic produced linked to depression, hyperactivity and even unscented products may have fragrance in theme), but the list goes on and on and on.

Many of these harmful chemicals have also been linked to serious health risks even at low-dose levels. Health effects include nausea, cramps, vomiting, skin rash, joint and bone pain, mouth sores, stillbirths, genetic damage, immune dysfunction, brain and learning disorders, violent behavior, and the big c, cancer. If you can’t pronounce 75% of the ingredients, DON’T BUY IT!

And the bigger question is why the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) neither tests nor determines the safety of cosmetics and toiletries. The cosmetic industry is self-regulating through independent panels of experts whom it appoints. The $35 billion dollar cosmetic industry is a very profitable enterprise, spending billions on advertising products we really don’t need. They also do not provide consumers with accurate information alerting them to carcinogenic contaminants or preservatives.

Your skin is the largest organ on your body and takes a lot of damage from our environment and what we do to it. The skin is porous and absorbing, more than 25% of the chemicals we put on it, get through the skin and into the blood stream. Another surprising fact is that nearly, “12.2 million adults are exposed to known or probable human carcinogens through daily use of personal care products.” (www.ewg.org/reports/skindeep.)

If you are starting a green lifestyle, I suggest to start with your skin. Not everything is organic, even the ‘organic’ and ‘natural’ products can be made of chemicals. Eliminating harmful beauty products containing parabens, preservatives, and sulfates, is a great beginning. Some can get expensive but products produced by companies including St. Ives, Physician’s Formula, and Whole Foods Body Product’s 365 products are very affordable. Become an informed consumer and it will change your life. Holy toxic waste on your face Batman!