Integrative Health Blog

Have you heard the welcome news?

Last week Johnson & Johnson reiterated it’s pledge to slowly phase out the toxic ingredients used in their baby product line by the end of 2013 and announced that it will also reformulate their adult personal care products which include Lubriderm, Aveeno and Neutrogena products, by 2015.

A large coalition of health and environmental groups, called The Campaign For Safe Cosmetics started calling for the removal of several dangerous and possibly carcinogenic chemicals from personal care products in 2009. Formaldehyde, 1,4 dioxan, triclosan, phthalates and parabens are just a few of the “chemicals of concern” according to the Environmental Working Group who is part of that coalition. Their website, www.ewg.org/skindeep contains a database of 75,000 personal care products that they have rated from 0-10 for toxicity levels.

The FDA does not test personal care products for safety - they rely on the individual companies to do that.

Personal care products fall under the “cosmetics” label, which includes deodorant, lotions, make-up, oral hygiene products and more.

The Campaign For Safe Cosmetics website www.safecosmetics.org includes articles of interest on various products and ingredients to help educate the consumer.

They state that many potentially hazardous chemicals are banned from personal care products in Europe and they are hoping the Untied States will follow suit. In fact, many American companies have two versions of the same product -  one for the stricter European market and one for the U.S market.

There are well over 50,000 chemicals in use in the United Staes today and the majority of these have not been tested for safety, according to the magazine Scientific American.

The Campaign For Safe Cosmetics announced plans for a consumer boycott of Johnson & Johnson products last November. Johnson & Johnson stepped up and agreed to quickly reformulate their baby products, effectively canceling the planned boycott.

Our bodies don’t know how to process those chemicals we take in on a daily basis. If we are not good at detoxifying (which a lot of us aren’t), those chemicals get stored in our fat cells, day by day, year after year. Should we be surprised then when disease develops?

Toxins have no place in personal care or home care products.

How much do you know about the products that you use?

Please start reading labels and educate yourself. Refer to the Enviromental Working Group site to check products, and purchase personal care products that are free of toxins.