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When I first started Eco Child’s Play, my daughter was five-years-old.  Eight years later, we are in the teenage years. Navigating this time of life can be difficult, as ego becomes more prevalent and judgement from and of peers has influence.

One aspect of teen life that has evolved in our family is the use of make-up. As a non make-up wearing mom, I could not give my daughter advice in application, but there was one rule:  It has to be natural!

My insistence on natural cosmetics has at times caused strife.  Natural cosmetics are more expensive, and since I don’t view make-up as a necessity, sometimes my daughter has to use her own money to buy it.  She sees how much more cheap cosmetics she could buy with her money, and she does know they contain known toxins, yet she is a teenager that does not contemplate death the same way her middle aged mom might.

So what toxins are in cheap cosmetics that you and your daughters should be concerned about?

Formaldehyde

Yes, the same chemical used to preserve dead things is in your cheap and not-so cheap cosmetics.

Jim Hightower in Nation of Change reports:

Just in the United States, the cosmetics industry pulls in some $70 billion a year in sales of what’s commonly called “makeup.” But lipstick, mascara, eye shadow, and the like aren’t the only kind of makeup the cosmetic giants are peddling.

One especially nasty example of this is the continuing campaign by L’Oreal, Revlon, and the industry’s Personal Care Products Council to keep putting formaldehyde in everything from baby wipes to hair straighteners. For years, their lobbyists, lawyers, and PR agents have been making up facts, stories, half-truths, and whole lies to keep lawmakers and regulators from banning various cancer-causing, hormone-disrupting ingredients that their products contain.

Back in 1981, the National Toxicology Program, an interagency scientific panel, first listed this noxious chemical as a likely human carcinogen. Cosmetic makers erupted with a volcano of outrage, and the program’s findings were buried.

 But the toxicologists, pushed by consumer and environmental groups, kept doing even-deeper research, and in 2011, the Health and Human Services Department declared that formaldehyde is “known to be a human carcinogen.”

That should have been that. But corporate lobbyists got their congressional puppets to assail the researchers for supposedly flawed methods and for interfering in private business. However, the prestigious National Academy of Science reviewed that research and now unequivocally endorses those findings. The Academy even determined that new research shows that formaldehyde may cause a much wider array of cancers than previously known.

So, after 33 years of efforts to make cosmetics safer, the health of babies finally wins one over makeup profiteers, right?

Not quite yet. Incredibly, the products of Revlon and L’Oreal still contain cancer-causing formaldehyde, and both of those greedheaded giants continue to balk at necessary reforms.

Baby wipes too!   It is beyond sad that our health is compromised when profits take priority over science.

As a consumer, you have choice!  Empower yourself!  Empower your daughters!

Make-up does not have to be toxic.  You can express yourself with natural cosmetics, like those by Dr. Hauschka.  Your daughter’s health is worth the extra expense.

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