Do you know what's in your skin care?
Are you aware that the average woman applies about 12 personal care products to her body daily and each product contains about 12 chemicals? That’s 144 chemicals! And, just in the morning no less! Less than 20% of these chemicals have been tested for their safety, which means we have no idea what we’re putting on our bodies.
I have been an advocate for safe beauty for almost two decades. When my late husband had a recurrence of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, an environmental cancer, I started to question everything we put on and around our bodies. From skincare to shower gel to our cleaning supplies, I learned that we were swimming in a chemical soup. I dove headfirst into researching and found The Campaign For Safe Cosmetics® (EWG) and completely cleaned up my beauty (and cleaning) routine.
It’s important to know what you are putting on your body. Many personal care products contain ingredients that have been linked to cancer, endocrine system disruption, breathing difficulties, and more health issues. You need to start reading—and understanding—labels and ingredients and choose healthier alternatives. The Skin Deep ® Database makes it easy for you.
After you’ve learned how to shop for toxin-free personal care products, you’ll rarely need to go back to this guide.
Want to find out if your products are safe?
Grab a few items out of your cabinets, such as a face or body wash, and then jump over to Skin Deep® and search for it in the database. There are many ways to search:
- Lookup a product. Enter its name in the white search window.
- Look up an ingredient. If you want to know if a particular ingredient is safe or if you’re allergic or want to avoid it for other reasons, the database contains information about possible health concerns, which products contain it, other names – and a whole lot more.
- Search by company. Want to know how a certain company stacks up? Search its name to see how its products rate.
- Find safer alternatives. Pick a category (toothpaste? shampoo? mascara?) and peruse product ratings. Warning: goods in some categories, like hair relaxers, have uniformly high hazard scores.
Understanding the ratings
The ingredient hazard score, from 1-10 reflects known and suspected hazards of ingredients.
