There is a way to tell if a skin care products company is committed to using safe ingredients.

I’ve talked quite a bit here about some of the ingredients that are used in cosmetics, skin care and anti aging products. And about how many of them are suspected of causing unwanted health effects to users, and how at least one of these cosmetics ingredients is listed as “known to cause cancer”.

So it’s pretty clear that there are some dangerous ingredients in skin care products and anti aging products and cosmetics.

If this is news to you then you need to read some more of my pages, starting with this one about natural skin care.

And you can find quite a few references to some suspect ingredients in Wikipedia too.

So if there are dangerous ingredients in some skin care products how do you know whether the company that makes your skin care and anti aging products is one committed to producing safe cosmetics or not?

Because some are, and some are not.

You need to know about the Campaign For Safe Cosmetics.

This is an organization committed to doing all it can to promote the use of safe ingredients in cosmetics. And they have a database of companies that have signed their campact for safe cosmetics.

Signing their compact for safe cosmetics pledges the company who signs “to not use chemicals that are known or strongly suspected of causing cancer, mutation or birth defects in their products and to implement substitution plans that replace hazardous materials with safer alternatives in every market they serve.”

You’ll know if you read regularly here that I consider the niche skin care company located in New Zealand called Xtend Life to be the best in the world for safe, and effective skin care and anti aging products for men and women.

So I just thought I’d let you know that Xtend Life is a signatory to the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics compact. As such it has pledged itself to producing cosmetics and skin care and anti aging product that are safe for consumers to use.

And that’s worth knowing.

Why don’t you see which company makes the skin care products or cosmetics that you use now by checking on the bottle.

Then see if they have signed the Campaign For Safe Cosmetics pledge? Read the rest of this entry

If there are dangerous ingredients in skin care products shouldn’t the FDA act?

I’ve talked before about some of the dangerous ingredients in skin care products and cosmetics in general. Read more about Natural Skin Care and dangerous ingredients. This article isn’t to talk about that.

This time I’m going to talk about what is done about dangerous ingredients in skin care products. Because there seems little doubt that there are suspect for even dangerous cosmetic ingredients in our cosmetics and skin care products.

I want to refer you to 2 sources that seem pretty unequivocal about this, and show pretty clearly that the FDA does not regulate the cosmetics and skin care and anti aging industries.

The first one is directly from the FDA website. It seems clear that the FDA regulates a “drug” but doesn’t regulate a “cosmetic”. Here’s a quote directly from their website:

“The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act defines drugs as those products that cure, treat, mitigate or prevent disease or that affect the structure or function of the human body. While drugs are subject to a review and approval process by FDA, cosmetics are not approved by FDA prior to sale.”

That seems pretty clear doesn’t it? If it’s a cosmetic it isn’t regulated by the FDA.

So if it isn’t regulated then if there are dangerous ingredients in skin care products and cosmetics and also anti aging products the FDA doesn’t do anything about it.

Here’s another quote from the FDA:

“FDA does not have a premarket approval system for cosmetic products or ingredients”.

Hmmmmm!

How about this. A quote from the Cosmetic Safety Database:

“Due to gaping loopholes in federal law, companies can put virtually any ingredient into personal care products. Even worse, the government does not require pre-market safety tests for any of them.”

Hmmmmm again!

So if the cosmetics and anti aging industry is unregulated, it’s up to the industry to regulate itself. To stop itself from putting dangerous or suspect ingredients in skin care products and cosmetics, even if it will make more money doing so.

Do you believe that big business will self regulate to avoid harming their customers where there is lots of money to be made? I don’t.

Just look at the tobacco industry. They’ve been killing their own customers for profit for decades, and lying about it too.So I thought I’d just tell you a little more about why you should be suspect about your skin care products.

Not all of them. There are excellent and safe natural skin care products, you just won’t have heard of the company that makes them, and you won’t find them on the shelves of your local drugstore either. Read the rest of this entry