Recently, I discovered that there are many toxic chemicals in our everyday skin care products. This includes lotion, soap, shampoo, conditioner, deodarant, shaving cream, make-up, etc. In the past I was more concerned with animal testing than actually looking into how the products impact humans. But now that I'm a Mom and every choice I make impacts another individual (that I love dearly), I'm now very concerned about what products I use on Diego. Eric and I have also been re-evaluating some of the products we use daily. It's difficult to make changes, no doubt. However, when it comes to Diego, Eric and I have all the power to dictate what will and will not be used on his skin. We've already been working on buying plastics with that are BPA free and I've been watching what ingredients are put into toys that Diego plays with.
* It may be helpful to know that when you turn a plastic product over and it has a little recycle triangle on it - check the number in the triangle. Numbers 3, 6 and 7 contain toxic ingredients in the plastic.
My father-in-law, Paul, was the one who first showed me an article regarding baby products with carcinogens in the ingredients (carcinogen = cancer causing substance or agent); specifically, carcinogenic 1, 4-dioxane and formaldehyde in baby bath products. [Read: http://www.thesmartmama.com/bg/ ] I was immediately interested in researching the topic and trying to figure out if any of the products we use are toxic. I was infuriated to find out that most of the products we had been using on Diego's skin were rated as moderate to high hazards due to the ingredients. Johnson & Johnson products were on the list (surprise, surprise), along with many other well-known baby product names. Check for yourself and see how the products you use are rated (0-2 is Low Hazard, 3-6 is Moderate Hazard, 7-10 is High Hazard) - Jen found this website for me and it's full of information on most products sold. It's amazing and disturbing, especially knowing how much infants and toddlers put everything in their mouth. So it's not just putting the stuff on you, but for small children it's also ingesting it.
(be sure to scroll to the bottom of web pages if you get warning messages about errors in downloading - the information is still at the bottom of the page)
The information is overwhelming, but necessary when as consumers we purchase products. With information like this, we are empowered to make healthy decisions for ourselves and for our children. I know there is no absolute way to safeguard everything, but knowledge is power - along with being smart consumers, purchasing power is the ultimate message to product makers. I've also noticed that many of these informative sites are linked to policy change initiatives. Much of why this is happening is because companies are not regulated in what they can or cannot put into their products. Eric and I were talking about it and I think it is as much the consumer's fault as the company's fault because we all want stuff with low price tags. To maintain low prices, businesses cannot put the quality research and product knowledge into their production budget, therefore, products are mass produced with the cheapest ingredients available (which appear to be also toxic).
Check it out for yourself. I think it's important to get involved in the discussion and let our consumer voices be heard through the choices we make in our spending habits and by getting involved with policy change. It's our own health and the health of children at stake.
I like it Jonette. The coolest thing is that organic and sustainability go hand in hand.
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