When I was young – I used to have a terrible problem with knots in my hair. I’m talkin’ big, ratty tangles that result from a combination of having thick wavy hair and from running/rolling/jumping around like a child that could have passed for having been raised by ferrets. Every night, my mother would sit down to my screeching and caterwauling as she desperately tried to comb out the bird’s nest that was my hair. As I complained and begged for mercy – her refrain was always the same: “This is the price of beauty, dear”.
Ugh. It still didn’t help.
The price of beauty has always been, well…pricey. Since the Egyptians’ use of lead to whip up new compounds to lather on their faces, humans have had vanity in our veins no matter how “skin deep” its purported to be. While the folks over at Web MD assure us that the government is diligently monitoring the cosmetics industry, the writers at Bitch beg to differ.
Currently, the government is *barely* keeping an eye on the self-regulating industry in a move tantamount to leaving fraternity members to chaperon a high school prom. Sure, there are some that will act responsibly but the arrangement still makes you squirm a bit. Additionally, it appears that the few regulatory measures it *does* have only opens the door for more misleading marketing. Between federal loopholes regarding chemical testing, minimal safety requirements and dodgy standards for what qualifies as “organic” and “natural” (that same Bitch article points out that a product can advertise itself as ‘organic’ if it contains 1% certified organic ingredients).
More scary info from Bitch :
Makeup menaces are nothing new: Some Elizabethan enchantresses died for their love of white lead–laced face powder, and Victorian vamps used deadly nightshade to lend their eyes an alluring glow. But today, when a $50-billion cosmetics industry has replaced apothecaries and home brewers, we expect the FDA to protect the public from dangerous beauty aids. Yet while its name might lead us to think otherwise, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act gives the FDA far more regulatory power over food additives and drugs than over cosmetics; the agency isn’t authorized to approve cosmetic products or ingredients before they hit the shelves. Manufacturers are under no legal obligation to register with the FDA, file data on ingredient safety, or report injuries caused by their products. The European Union has banned 1,132 known or suspected carcinogens, mutagens, and reproductive toxins from use in cosmetics, but only 10 such chemicals are banned in the United States, leaving us with mercury in mascara, petrochemicals in perfumes, and parabens in antiperspirants. And just as none of the offending lipsticks’ labels indicated the presence of lead, the FDA allows potentially hazardous chemicals like phthalates—industrial solvents linked to birth defects in boys’ reproductive systems and premature puberty in girls—to slip into ingredient lists under the umbrella term “fragrance.”
[...]
It gets worse. Only 11 percent of the 10,000-plus ingredients used in personal care products have been assessed by the Cosmetic Ingredient Review, the safety panel established and funded by the Personal Care Products Council that—conflict of interest be damned—is the primary source of information for the FDA’s Office of Cosmetics and Colors. The industry touts the CIR as a scrupulous safeguard that renders outside oversight unnecessary, but in the more than three decades since it was founded, the panel has deemed a scant nine ingredients unsafe. And manufacturers aren’t even under any obligation to follow the CIR’s recommendations—one of the nasty nine, the likely carcinogen hydroxyanisole, is still found in Porcelana skin cream, for instance.
For what it’s worth, the author does recommend the Cosmetics Database for anyone wanting to make sure their body glitter won’t spontaneously com bust when mixed with hair spray.
Read up on it. This isn’t one of those “Argh – quit using make-up and go au naturale” deals. Yes – everyone should feel confident and comfortable in their own skin – but I don’t believe putting on a little lip gloss makes you patriarchy’s hand puppet. This is just one of those, “Hm. I didn’t know they put anti-freeze in deodorant. How ’bout that?” sort of deals. Ultimately – I figure it’s better for folks to know that concerns have been raised – and allow the consumers the right to dismiss or investigate the claims to make their own choice.
Better to be informed about the products than deformed later because of them – right? Right.
