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Cosmetics and Your Health
By now, everyone knows about the province-wide ban on pesticides for cosmetic purposes. Cosmetics for your lawn, that is. Fancying up that patch of greenery you park your car beside, the verge that makes you pine for the Emerald Isle, the grass that is (hopefully) greener on your side of the fence. Of course, there are loopholes in the legislation…turn your yard into a golf course or host an international sporting event on your front lawn and you can spray pesticides to your hearts content. But I think we all recognize the ban is for our health. Scientists have toiled over many a test tube to show us the harmful effects these chemicals have on our health. But would you slather pesticides on your face? A truly cosmetic use for these toxins!
What’s your daily routine look like? Grudgingly get out of bed, shower, try to tame your hair, maybe some makeup, a soupcon of fragrance, lotion during the day when you notice that you can grate cheese on the back of your hand? But have you asked what chemicals lurk in these personal care products? Want a longer shelf life for your cosmetics? Use formaldehyde. Need vibrant colours to reinforce the notion that your raspberry-burst shower gel is really, truly raspberry? Use coal tar dyes. Want shiny hair or trying to lock moisture into your skin? Petrochemicals. Even those lovely scents you layer onto yourself multiple times a day; a spritz of cologne here, a mango-scented lotion there. It’s recently been shown that the generic use of the terms “parfum” or “fragrance” often hide a lagoon of chemicals that don’t have to be listed so as not to expose company trade secrets.
Why do we care? Some of the biological effects we’ve set out to avoid with the ban on pesticides for your dandelions can happen from the toxins in our cosmetics. There are chemicals that mess with hormone signalling, either by mimicking a hormone or inhibiting its action. There are chemicals that interfere with the normal functioning of a cell, a very bad thing if that cell is part of a developing child. There are chemicals that outright cause cancer. And then there are chemicals that you want to share with the world so you wash them into the waterways where they either immediately kill fish or bio-accumulate, to kill fish (or people) further up on the foodchain; the gift that keeps giving.
The David Suzuki Foundation’s “What’s Inside? That Counts” campaign provides a primer on some of the bad chemicals you might find in your cosmetics as well as a chance to participate in a survey inventorying the toxins in your personal care products. This information will then be used to push the government to enforce stricter labelling of chemicals in body products. The project runs through June, so grab your favourite personal care product and go to their website to participate in the survey (http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/health/projects/whats-inside-that-counts/). And while you are there, print up a wallet-sized guide of the dirty dozen ingredients to avoid in your cosmetics for the next time you head out to your local pharmacy.
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