IS YOUR MAKEUP BAG TOXIC?

I was sitting at lunch with my friend Jessica last week and she whipped out her makeup bag and started rummaging around for a lip gloss. Knowing that Jessica is extremely new to the green way of life, I couldn’t resist asking to have a peek inside the black & gold expensive-looking bag, which was clearly bulging with necessities. Rolling her eyes in anticipation of a “Sophie lecture” coming on, she laid every item out on the table in front of me: 1 Mascara, 1 eyelash curler, 3 lip glosses, 1 lipstick, 1 hand-sanitizer, 1 stick of concealer, 1 pack of dental floss and a small bottle of perfume.

After carefully examining each item, I explained that there was nothing horrendous in her bag – meaning that no one item posed an immediate threat to her health. “Oh great, because I just spent a fortune on half of this stuff”, she replied, stuffing everything back into the black bag, “but what’s all this hysteria about toxic chemicals in cosmetics then?”

She’s right, there is a lot of hysteria, and unless you are using something that is a proven carcinogen (very few actually have been proven to be,) a few applications of an ostensibly “toxic” skin care product, isn’t truly going to pose an imminent threat to your health – I mean many of us having been using these chemical laden potions for years and are still here to tell the tale. The important thing to realize is that it’s all about the bio-accumulation or the cumulative effect of applying many products, multiple times a day, over many years.

It’s vital to understand that we are bombarded by environmental toxins every single day. Phthalates and Parabens, which are found in personal care products, operate through estrogen receptors, as do a number of other similar hormone-disrupting chemicals, and they wind up adding to the other estrogenic compounds to which we are exposed, including BPA via food and other sources. The biggest problem is not necessarily the individual chemical or chemical compound, but that these chemicals are often combined in ways whose implications may take years to reveal. Bottom line – we just don’t know if they’re safe and if you don’t know, why take the risk when there are so many completely safe products around that perform as well, if not better?

Jessica wasn’t thrilled with this information, but being a woman of child-bearing age, who was indeed planning on trying to get pregnant in the not too distant future, she said she’d be open to some alternatives as long as I PROMISED that these products worked as well as the ones that she loved in the black & gold purse. “I want foundations/concealers that don’t accentuate my wrinkles  and I need all that light-diffusing stuff that’s in my regular foundations, I want a concealer that conceals, lip color that doesn’t rub straight off in a huge variety of colors, mascara that doesn’t cake and that makes my eyelashes look inches long, and a hand sanitizer which totally zaps any germs to which I might come in contact with.”

I first told Jessica to keep the following in mind when she next goes shopping:

Parabens; with names like methylparaben, propylparaben and butylparaben, they’re easy to spot. Phthalates end in the word phthalate, but can also be listed by any number of abbreviations including DMP, DBP, DHEP or DNHP; let that final P be a red flag. Nitrosamines are the most difficult to spot, with chemical names like N-Nitrosoanabasine. Look for the root “nitroso” to catch most of them, or for abbreviations that contain an N (NDMA is common).

I also, quickly – as we had hogged our table for far too long, gave her the skinny on each item in that lovely bag of hers”

1. Mascara: Jessica’s mascara was an extremely expensive department store brand in a beautiful black and gold case, however, I know that it contains Parabens, phthalates, aluminum powder and fragrance. Some mascaras even contain mercury! So I recommended my favorite Terra Firma Stacked Mascara, which I could in good conscience, promise would deliver fantastic results. BTW, I told Jessica that if she wants super-long lashes, she should try the Nutra-lift Lash Reneu lash enhancer that I carry in my store – I’ve been using it for a while and someone told me last week that my lashes look like spider’s legs they’re so long! I also love that I know and approve of all of it’s ingredients, which is more than can be said for the the lash “enhancers” that are being peddled at every dermatologist’s office.

2. Eyelash Curler:

Obviously not toxic, but I did hear a horror story from a make-up artist recently about a popular Japanese brand of curler, which had actually CUT OFF one of her client’s lashes – can you imagine!!! My favorite ever curler is made by Tarte Cosmetics.

3. Lips:

Most of us have heard about lead in lipsticks, which is indeed a huge concern. I wasn’t sure about the brands of Jessica’s glosses – she said they were inexpensive drugstore brands, so I’d assume they might contain Oxybenzone, BHA and Fragrance – all of which are to be avoided. Fragrance doesn’t sound too awful, but it means that you’ll be licking phthalates off your lips throughout the day – not a pleasant thought. Which brands do I love? Well, my favorite ever lip gloss is made by RMS cosmetics – expensive but OH so worth it! I also adore the Revolution Glosses, which are more affordable and have a great color variety to choose from.

4. Hand Sanitizer:

The kind that Jessica has contains Triclosan in it, a chemical which has extremely worrisome health effects and in my opinion should be avoided. I like the EO Hand Sanitizers, which are available through Amazon or Wholefoods. However, less expensive and just as effective – try making your own (recipe in Do It Gorgeously).

5. Dental Floss

I don’ t think they are any terrible dangers in most brands of dental floss, but I do want to point out that the best dental floss/tape I’ve ever used and thus cannot live without is the Tom’s Of Maine (naturally-waxed, flat tape), unlike those thinner ones that slither through your teeth doing little good, one pull-through with this peppermint tape, and you’re done!

6. Perfume

Jessica’s penultimate product and the one that she was most loathe to let go of was her precious perfume, which she’d paid a small fortune for at Barney’s Of New York. I knew for a fact that it was laden with phthalates and I strongly recommended she ditch it however painful that may be. She pulled a face saying that all those “awful natural ones” are useless because the scent fades after just 10 minutes. I agreed that many of them do, but I pleaded with her to try Ajne, which is potent, sexy and just the most beautiful perfume ever. I’ll probably give her a bottle for a holiday gift.

7. Concealer

Final product spotted in her purse was a small pot of concealer. Many women won’t leave the house without a concealer – just in case. Many women also use a concealer instead of a foundation – they don’t want that caked-on look and prefer just to dab a bit of concealer on minor imperfections. Concealer is just a concentrated form of foundation. Most of them are filled with all kinds of awful chemicals, however – it’s taken me a while to find ones that I really love. My 2 favorite concealers to date are: RMS Beauty “Un-Cover” and Vapour Beauty “Illusionist.

So, that was my lunch with Jessica and she promised me that she’d make the changes by asking for all these yummy new products for gifts this year and that she’d keep me posted on whether she felt they stood up to the ones that she’d probably have to throw away. I walked away feeling not in the least bit guilty about getting her to trash her expensive products – she’ll be healthier for it, and once she’s tried all these wonderful alternatives – they’ll be no going back.

What’s in your cosmetic purse??