I have read a pretty incredible book and decided I would start sharing snippets from the book. The book is called Not Just a Pretty FaceThe Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry by Stacy Malkan. Stacy is the Communications Director of Health Care Without Harm and a media strategist and cofounder of Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.

The book is an eye-opening look at the cosmetics industry and the lobbying efforts that have allowed big name companies to continue to use chemicals that are known to be harmful in humans.

The book starts by writing about a study that was done in 2004 by the American Red Cross and the Environmental Working Group, and Commonweal, a California health and environmental group. In the study, they measured chemicals in the umbilical cord blood of newborns born at randomly selected hospitals across the country. These babies had not yet been in direct contact with industrialized society. “The researchers detected a total of 287 chemicals in the babies’ cord blood, including 180 chemicals that can cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 that are toxic to the brain and nervous system and 208 that cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal studies.” OK – that was on page 2 of this book. Needless to say I was more than curious to read on.

I will continue to post learnings that I found very interesting.