Lead in Your Lipstick????

Most consumers believe that the labels on their cosmetics offers protection from harmful chemicals and toxins. Unfortunately, this is just NOT the case. Personal care product ingredients, nor MOST consumer goods ingredients other than those added to foods, do NOT need FDA approval. They do NOT need health studies. They do NOT need any pre-market studies for safety. In fact some of the largest and richest cosmetics companies in the world routinely use "low levels" of toxic chemicals linked to cancer, birth defects and learning disabilities in their cosmetic products even though safer alternatives are available. WHY????
Because it is CHEAPER and allows for larger profits. The chemical companies and the cosmetics companies work hand in glove, continuing to produce and use these toxic chemicals which are frankly threatening the entire human species.

In 2004, the Red Cross collected blood and sent it to two different independent laboratories for analysis. Each person's blood contained HUNDREDS of industrial chemical compounds, pesticides, stain repellants, flame retardents, even PCBs which were banned in the 70's. But this was not blood from adults....this was blood from newborn babies, born in August and September of that year!! Lab results revealed 287 chemicals in BABIES CORD BLOOD, 180 that cause cancer in humans and animals, 217 that are toxic to the brain and 208 that cause birth defects or abnormal development. The US Centers for Disease Control studies show that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US is contaminated with scores of synthetic chemicals that are known to be toxic. Studies show that even low doses of some chemicals can disrupt hormones, and interfere with normal development especially if the exposure occurs in the womb or in early childhood.

More than half of all cosmetic products on department store and drugstore shelves contain chemicals that can act like estrogen or disrupt hormone activity. In 1996, Dr. Theo Colborn documented countless reproductive and development disorders in wild life, such as sterile bald eagles and panthers with abnormal testicles among many others, and traced them back to synthetic chemicals which were interfering with the endocrine system. In 2006, Dr. Colborn tracked increasing numbers of such incidences, which she says is an "emerging pandemic of endocrine disorders in the Northern hemishphere". The evidence shows:

Chemical exposures at even lower levels than previously suspected can disrupt normal development

Genes and chemicals can work together in very unexpected ways to cause disease

Mixtures of chemicals can have very unexpected health effects

Early life exposure to synthetic chemicals can lead to health problems that do not show up until later in life.

The effects of chemicals are cumulative

The US Environmental Agency states that we've known for 25 years that phthlates disrupt the production of testosterone critical for the masculinization of the males species. The spectrum of de-masculinization, low sperm counts, testicular atrophy, undescended testicles and birth defects of the penis are so common in lab animals exposed to phthlates they have a name "phthlates syndome". Yet in 2000, CDC scientists founds the same sypmtoms occurring in humans on an increasing basis in the industrialized world!! In the same report, the data show that women age 20 to 40, CHILD BEARING AGE, had the highest levels of phthlates in their bodies. Women who could expose their babies, in the womb, to these chemicals. Why women??? Because we use the most personal care products.

In 2002, 72 of the most popular personal care products, selected from the Chain Drugstore Weekly which annually shows the most popular, were sent off to an independent laboratory. Of the 72 tested, more than 3/4 contained phthlates, and many contained multiple phthlates, yet not one label showed phthlates as an ingredient!!! Hair Spray, deodorant, hair gels, body lotions and every single fragrance tested. These were brands that you and I have probably used: Cover Girl, Pantene, Secret Dove, Suave, Salon Selectives, Clairol, L'Oreal, Revlon and even Healing Garden!! And this is just a mere fraction of the products on the shelves. Phthlates are already banned in Europe, and the large compaines who sell in Europe reformulated their products, eliminating phthlates and other chemicals in order to be able to sell them there, yet phthlates, lead and other chemicals are still sold in products in the US, though in 2004 Revlon and L'Oreal did agree to reformulate their products to eliminate chemicals already banned in the European Union. But what about all the rest of the cosmetic companies??

It doesn't stop with hair spray and body lotions, either. In 2006 TV station WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh tested 5 of the most popular lipstick s and found lead in every one!! In Los Angeles, station KCBS-TV found lead at levels of 0.2 and 0.4 parts per million in 4 of the lipsticks they tested. That is 2 to 4 times the FDA limit for candy. And since the average woman is expected to consume ( as in EAT) 4 to 6 pounds of lipstick over her lifetime, and since lead builds up in the body, how much lead is being passed on to a her baby in the womb??? And as we should all know by now, there is NO safe level of lead in a child's blood. And many if not most mascaras sold by the major cosmetics companies contain the chemical thimerosal, which is made up of brain damaging mercury !!

So let's start voting with our dollars, and buy products made of natural or organic ingredients. There really ARE safer alternative to toxic chemicals that are better for you, your children and our world