This summer I have received a lot of questions about soaps,sunscreens,and mosquito repellants. I have also been looking into the safety and toxicity of cosmetics for my own benefit. I stumbled across a great website called SKIN DEEP. It is a cosmetic safety database that is maintained by the Environmental Working Group. In their own words,it is…
an online safety guide for cosmetics and personal care products. Our aim was to fill in where companies and the government leave off:companies are allowed to use almost any ingredient they wish,and our government doesn’t require companies to test products for safety before they’re sold. EWG’s scientists built Skin Deep to be a one-of-a-kind resource,integrating our in-house collection of personal care product ingredient listings with more than 50 toxicity and regulatory databases.
I have found the website to be very helpful. Even if they do not have the exact brand you are researching,they have an extensive list of ingredients and research on them. I would caution against just looking at the ranking numbers. There are several ingredients that have a rather high score that I would not consider hazardous. For example,honey because of allergies is given a fairly high rating,Vitamin E is also rated high because ingesting extremely large amounts can be toxic. Use your own judgments and determine what is most important to you. I found their Sunscreen 2009 Guide to be very helpful this year. I also found the search engine helpful when looking up soaps and shampoos for children with extremely sensitive skin (my own included).
Whenever I am running low on a product,I try to look up a few to look for in the store. It is not always easy to find their number one product,so I find a few that I have heard of and are the best I think I can find. It’s nice to have somewhere to consult,especially in todays maket place where everything is claiming to be “natural.”I hope you find it as helpful as I have!
