There are so many different types of mineral makeup these days and you come to the question of: Where did the issue of natural cosmetics come from?  Do you know what the term ‘body burden’ means?  I first heard of this back in 2005, while I was researching the “why” behind the fast-paced growth of natural and organic cosmetics.  I discovered that according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Americans of all ages carry what they call a ‘body burden’ of at least 148 chemicals that should not be there, some of which include toxins that have been banned for over two decades!  I also learned that research now shows that up to 60% of the chemicals that we apply to our skin are absorbed into our body, contrary to the formerly held belief that our skin is a perfect barrier.  Yikes!

At that time my husband and I were ready to start a family, and since I’m that girl who uses about 30 beauty products a day, I wanted to find a better, safer alternative to traditional personal care – one that was both good for our bodies and good for the planet to produce.  Having worked in prestige beauty for 10 years, I also had a high standard for the product’s performance, something that was still an obstacle for most natural brands.  That was the start of Raw Natural Beauty – all natural cosmetics, mineral makeup and skincare.

So back to our body burden. Sandra Schubert, director of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group has made the point that the rise in chronic diseases in the U.S. has many factors, but chemicals are clearly playing a role. “We have found almost 200 industrial chemicals in umbilical cord blood (in other studies)…We are being exposed to these chemicals and there’s increasing data on their toxicity.”

The umbilical cord blood study she references is an especially powerful one for mothers and mothers-to-be.  In a nutshell, the Environmental Working Group conducted a study with the Red Cross where the Red Cross collected samples of umbilical cord blood from 10 babies at the moment of birth and found 287 chemicals present.  These chemicals included 28 waste by-products and 47 consumer product chemicals like Teflon, scotch guard and stain master. Also found were 212 industrial chemicals and pesticides that have been banned over 30 years, like Polychloride Biphenyl (PCB), a probable human carcinogen and toxic environmental pollutant still found in meat poultry.  Another zinger was DBT, which was used on old cotton fields and still remains in the soil. These pollutants persist in our environment and build up in the food chain, and then in our bodies

So what can we do to reduce our chemical expose? Buy organic food, buy cleaning products from brands like seventh generation, Filter tap water, use cast iron instead of non-stick cookware, eat low mercury fish.  But there is only so much we can do to ‘shop’ our way out of exposures. We need to push for the development of green chemistry (the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use or creation of hazardous substances. Green chemistry applies across the life cycle, including the design, manufacture, and use of a chemical product). We need chemicals that DON’T build up in our bodies. Women’s Health, Planetary Health, Children’s Heath need to be our concern moving forward, a shift to greener, safer, alternatives. BUT the government also needs to help by requiring better testing of our products.  Shockingly, the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) has never been updated (it’s the only major environmental and public health statue that hasn’t been modified). This Act doesn’t require health and safety studies for new chemicals.  Under this Act, 62,000 chemicals were grandfathered in and the EPA reviewed the safety of just 200 of them!  For new chemicals, 80% are approved within 3 weeks, with or without safety studies – the EPA uses a computer model to estimate toxicity (boo).    We need to wake congress up and let them know that children should be born into this world free of chemicals!

Regarding cosmetics, the average woman applies 12 products a day, which equals over 168 different chemicals (and most of us beauty junkies are far from average!), and many of these products/chemicals remain on her body all day and even all night.  When you consider that the skin can absorb those chemicals, you can understand why it’s so important to use natural cosmetics.  Of course, I’m partial to using Raw Natural Beauty’s Raw Color, Raw Skincare and Raw Minerals.  But I would recommend any brand that avoids parabens, petrochemicals, fragrance and FD&C and D&C colors (I’ll speak in more detail about ingredients to avoid in a future post).  I personally think Suki Color and Jane Iredale have some great products and I love Aroma Bella cleansers.  You can always feel safe choosing a brand that wears the Natural Products Association Seal or skincare that has an Organic certification (but don’t be fooled into thinking a product is organic just because it uses the term on the packaging – it must also have an actual certification seal, but I’ll explain more about that later).  Before you start feeling overwhelmed, I think just being aware of what we purchase and what we are putting on our bodies is an important first step.  Happy Shopping!

Tags: mineral makeup, Skincare

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 at 9:57 am and is filed under Natural & Organic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.