The Daily Green online magazine has released some useful guidelines for seeking safe lipsticks.  Basically, what it comes down to is to avoid the following:

• Parabens
• Phthalates
• Formaldehyde-releasing preservatives
• Butylated Hydroxyanisole (BHA)
• Oxybenzone
• Fragrance
• Lead

In many ways, it’s great to have a nice list to use when looking for a safe product. However, the tricky thing is that you often don’t know if some of these ingredients are in the products as many companies don’t label all ingredients in their products.

The article does go on to list a few suggestions of safe lipsticks. Interestingly they are all pretty steeply priced. The good news? Garden Girl offers lipstick sheers that meet the above requirements AND are only $5.50 each! Check them out at www.GardenGirlSkinCare.com.

And keep an eye out for more colors coming soon!

This morning on NPR there was a report that indicated that it isn’t just toys from China that you have to worry about. Let’s all groan together. I found this report to be truly eye-opening. A Michigan non-profit group called The Ecology Center, tested about 1500 toys including stuffed animals, books, games, action figures and other products. The scary part – they found that nearly 1/3 of the products (about 500 of them) have “significant levels of lead, arsenic and other chemicals. The results showed no consistent correlation between the presence of toxic chemicals in toys and where they were made or how much they cost.” YIPES!
The worst offenders? Cheap jewelry, bath toys and infant books.

Lead was one of biggest issues. Yes, toys made in China were more likely to have lead than toys made elsewhere. But not by much! 21% of toys (1 in 5) made in China were found to have high or moderate levels of lead. But 16% (nearly 1 in 6!) made elsewhere were also found to have unacceptable levels of lead. Of toys made in the US – 35% had some detectable level of lead!

What can you do? First – be very (very) selective about the toys you buy this holiday season. But be also glad that stricter regulations will come into effect next year.

To check out the NPR report click here

Another interesting and highly disturbing bit from Not Just a Pretty Face. The average woman uses a dozen personal care products containing 168 chemical ingredients every day. Men use about six products a day with around 85 chemicals.

We carry man-made pollutants in our bodies. We get them from the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the products we use to “clean” our homes and make them “smell nice” and the products we put on our bodies each day.

I have been paying a lot of attention to TV and magazine ads these days. The first thing I have noticed is there is a steady stream of ads touting skin creams and lotions from companies that top Campaign for Safe Cosmetics’ list for worst offenders of chemicals in personal care products.

But I have also noticed a huge increase in the number of products that are out there to make our homes smell good. It is astounding. Just from Glade alone there are spray cans of air fresheners, “plug-ins” so we get chemicals in our air 24/7, candles, waxless candles, and oils. Do our homes smell THAT bad?

WebMD did an article recently about the dangers of burning candles in the home. Some wicks have lead in them and can cause lead poisoning. Additionally, the soot in the air can cause air quality issues.

From the article: “Candles are fast becoming one of the most common unrecognized causes of poor indoor air quality,” says Diane Walsh Astry, Executive Director of the Health House Project, an American Lung Association education project in St. Paul, Minnesota.

We really just need to stop wasting our money on these products that not only unnecessary, but they are potentially harmful. Want your house to smell nice? Buy some flowers. Open the windows. Bake something.