My Pura Vida

Are the Ingredients in Your Cosmetics Safe?

According to the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, over 500 companies have agreed to remove ingredients that are suspected to cause cancer, mutation or birth defects from their products.  What about the products you are using?  Are they manafactured by a company that cares about the health of their consumers or just about profits and the bottom line?  Check out the list of companies to find out. 

In January 2003, the EU amended the Cosmetics Directive (76/768/EEC) to ban the use of chemicals that are known or strongly suspected of causing cancer, mutation or birth defects. This amendment went into force in September 2004. No such regulation exists in the United States or the majority of other countries.  The U.S. FDA website clearly states, "Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act, cosmetics and their ingredients are not required to undergo approval before they are sold to the public. Generally, FDA regulates these products after they have been released to the marketplace. This means that manufacturers may use any ingredient or raw material, except for color additives and a few prohibited substances, to market a product without a government review or approval." 

The FDA further suggests that consumers protect themselves by reading ingredients on the labels.  This is a difficult task given the large number of ingredients.  If the ingredients aren't tested for safety by experts, how would consumers really know what is safe or not by looking at the list of ingredients? Ruth Winter has written A Consumer's Dictionary of Cosmetic Ingredients.    This is a valuable tool for conscious consumers.  But how many people are going to carry a fat book around with them when they are shopping to know if the product they are buying are safe?  There is a flaw in the system. 

Which Would You Spray on Your Head?

For many years I have had long straight hair that doesn't require a lot of effort to maintain.  Upon my return to the U.S. I decided it was time to update my hair sytle.  This was a mistake.  The new haircut now requires me to put hair styling products on it to keep it in proper place.  For this reason, this hairstyle isn't going to last, but for the meantime I have to deal with it the best I can. 

I stopped using hair spray several years ago when I noticed the large list of chemicals that existed in the product.  I decided that I didn't need to add these chemicals to my body burden.  As a result all of my senses have become more sensitive and aware of exposure to environmental toxins. 

When I first got the new cut I went to the beauty products store and purchased the most organic looking option I could find.  The title of the product includes the word organic in the label, but there are no organic ingredients listed on the label which includes:

Product Number 1 Ingredients:  Alcohol Denatured, Aqua Octylacrylamide/Acrylates/Butylaminoethyl Meth, Aminomethyl Propanol, Hydroloyzed Quinoa, Medicavo Sativa (Alfalfa) Extract, Acacia Senegal Extract, IPU Fruit Extract, Crataegus Monogina Extracxt, Tataxacum Officinale (Dendelion) Extract, Camomila Recuitita Flower Extract, Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Seed Oil, Panthenol, Tocopheryl Acetate, Retinyl Palmitate, Trethyl Citrate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, PEG/PPG-18/18, Dimethicone, Benzophenone -3, Propylene Glycol, Benzyl Benzoate, Butylphenol Methyl Proponal, Limonene, Parfume/Fragrance, Blue 1. 

I could feel the product sitting on my head after spraying it on.  I had a headache at the top of the head in the place where I sprayed the product most days when I wore the product. There was also an unpleasant taste which remained in my mouth all day.  After a month of "dealing" with this unpleasant experience, I decided to read the labels on the styling products available at Whole Foods to see if I could come up with a better option.  The second product I tried is enriched with certified organic botanicals, contains no animal byproducts and is cruelty free. 

Product Number 2 Ingredients:  Aqua (Purified Water) with *Rosemary (Rosemarinus Officinalis) Oil, *Nettle (Uritica Dioica) Oil, *Thyme (Thymus Vulgaris) Oil, Bircxh Leaf (Butela Alba) Oil, *Chamomile (Anthemis Nobilis Flower) Oil, *Clary (Salvia Sclarea), *Lavender (Lavendula Agustifolia), *Coltsfoot Leaf (Tussilago Farfara), *Yarrow (Achillea Millefolium) Oil, *Mallow (Malva Sylvestris), *Horsetail (Equestetum Arvense) Oil, PVP/VA, Copolymer, *Soybean Protein (Glycine Soja), Alcohol Denatured (plant derived), Tocopherol (Vitamin E), Trace Minerals, Citric Acid (corn), Grapefruit Seed (citrus derived).    *Certified Organic Ingredient

I have not gotten the headaches using this product.  I can still taste it in my mouth when I am wearing it, however I don't feel as bad about the taste knowing that the majority of the ingredients are organic.  My overall recommendation when reading product labels is to stay away from products that don't include ingredients on their labels at all.  Look for the products that have the least number of chemical ingredients that do not come from natural sources.  The more organic ingredients the better. 

A final reminder that our skin is very pourous and is an effective delivery system to the other vital organs.  That is why drug companies often use patches as delivery systems for their drugs.  The skin products company Burt's Bees has their vendors taste all their skin products for purity.  If skin products aren't safe to put in your mouth, why would you want to put them on your skin? 

For more information on the safety of popular health and beauty brands see Skin Deep. 

The Slow Poisioning of India - And Others

While living in Costa Rica it was a greater challenge finding organic foods than what I had been used to in California.  However, over the year that I lived there, the quantity available from when I first started living there to when I left was noticable.  Now that I am back in the U.S., shopping at Whole Foods makes it much easier.  I have been enjoying foods like heirloom tomatoes and nectarines that I couldn't get while living in Costa Rica. The produce section is full of summer fruits and vegetables right now, that are labeled, often with information about the farms they came from.  However, after viewing the video Slow Poisoning of India today, I realized that there is another issue with my diet that needs to be addressed.  My boyfriend Jeet is from India, and many of the foods we eat are imported and purchased at one of the many Indian markets in the area. 

It is a fact that developing countries don't have the same regulatory controls over pesticides, and their foods are often much more contaminated than even the "conventional" foods we get here in the United States.  When these foods are imported in, most often we have no idea of where they have come from specifically and what chemicals were used on them. 

Jeet comes from Punjab, the largest farming region in India.  Several of the farmers interviewed in the film are from this region.  I can only imagine what kind of chemicals Jeet may have been exposed to from the fields while he was growing up.  Earlier this year, he went back to visit for the first time in seven years.  He spoke to some of his family members who are still farming about the dangers of some of the chemicals that they are using in and on the foods they produce.  They didn't want to listen to what he had to say.  They took offense to his going to the U.S. to live, and now coming back to tell them how to run their business. 

But now he and I have a challenge.  We have to figure out what foods we are buying from the Indian store are really safe for us to eat.  I don't even know if there are such thing as organic foods imported from India.  Some of the foods are labeled with an Indian brand, but made in the US or Canada.  This would mean that they have met the regulatory controls in the countries where they are produced, however that doesn't guarantee safety by any means. 

The fact that we are eating all these imported foods is another whole issue.  It is much better for us to eat foods that are from local farmers who are accountable to their customers. 

This is a personal "environmental security" story that allows me to share some of my learnings over the past year in Costa Rica.  Now that I understand much more about the human induced dangers to our global ecosystem, from pesticides and other chemicals, as well as the global food supply, it is now up to me to use the knowledge to arrive at better solutions.  The first step is figuring out how to make adjustments in my own purchasing decisions. 

See this related article from Reuters today. 

Governmental Actions for Public Safety from Consumer and Industrial Chemicals

This past Thursday, the Canadian Government released initial information on their study of over 4,000 chemicals in use today which pose health risks to either humans or wildlife populations.  This is the largest study on the health impacts of consumer and industrial chemicals undertaken by any country in the world.  They plan to begin making announcements in the next couple of weeks about which chemicals pose the greatests risks and any regulations needed to control these substances.  I will be looking forward to seeing more details and sharing this information as it is released.

The Canadians have made a significant commitment to public health and safety by conducting this research!  I have written before about the importance of REACH legislation in the EU, and the 2005 bill s1391, however the Canadians have clearly taken the lead on this critical issue.  A dangerous chemical is harmful no matter what country it is used in.  This information is important and valuable to all countries around the world. 

The Chemicals in That New Car Smell

This news article from SF Gate was just up my alley, as I have been doing a lot of research lately on human exposure to chemical pollutants in the environment.  A Nothern California environmental team measured the exposure to chemical compounds in a new Toyota Prius, a highly popular car among environmental types including myself.  The results:  over 60 airborne chemicals were found in the new car.  The results exemplify the scope of volatile organic compounds found in any new car today.  Thanks to Eric Corey Freed for sharing this article on his blog Organic Architecht.

Toxicity data is only available for a small number of chemicals found in the study, because currently there are no regulations that require health and environmental testing of chemicals found in consumer products.  As documented in the 2005 US Congress Bill s1391, the US EPA has reviewed the human health risks for an estimated 2 percent of the 62,000 chemicals that have been produced since 1976,  Further, in the last 29 years the EPA has issued regulations to ban or restrict the use of only 5 substances.  This bill proposed that the EPA Administrator develop a list of the top 300 chemicals that are suspected to have the greatest human health risks. 

Not only is the health of Americans impacted by the lack of regulations, humans all around the world suffer.  According to the WTO, over 85% of chemicals exported in trade come from the US and EU (including the 25 extra-EU countries).  Thus, the burden of responsibility for testing regulations should be in the countries where these products are developed.  Until now, the EU hasn't had a much better regulatory record than the US.  Greenpeace Europe estimates that around 140 of the 100,000 chemicals manufactured in the EU have been subjected to detailed health and environmental testing.  Proposed EU legislation REACH, would require manufacturer registration of about 30,000 chemicals in the first 11 years, a much more aggressive plan than in the US. 

The Greenpeace report highlights that babies are now born with up to 100 manmade chemicals already in their bodies.  Results from a study in Washington State released May 2006 found many banned chemicals such as DDT in the bodies of test participants.  For more info about the pollution in people, see the Body Burden site.

Unfortunately, most people are not aware of the weakness of current regulations.  As you can imagine, companies are not in favor of these proposed regulations because they would bear the increased costs for new testing requirements.  Ethical and social responsibility is critical here.  It is important to increase public awareness about this important issue. 

Empathy Education

"Sympathy and pity come naturally. But truly understanding a person or group of people may require you to put yourself in their shoes, and that requires empathy. A careful process of teaching and field trips can lead students toward this frame of mind, and a greater understanding of the people around them."  I think you will enjoy this article on empathy education from Sabrina Sideris.  She is Masters student in the Peace Education program at the University for Peace. 

Yoga and Ayurveda Retreat

We had a lovely day at the Pura Vida Resort on Wednesday with morning and afternoon yoga sessions and classes on Ayurvedic healing inbetween.  The day long session was offered for local Costa Ricans at a very good price as part of a week long retreat going on.  When we ate lunch, it turned out the three girls sitting next to us were also from the SF Bay area. 

Dengue Fever Outbreak

Today we received a message from the Dean about an outbreak of Dengue fever in the town in which we are living.  There have been 25 confirmed cases in the town so far of 60 people who have been tested.   Representatives of the Ministry of Health have started checking the backyards of houses in Ciudad Colón in search of sites where mosquitoes can be produced.  Heads of family could get a fine or be even jailed if he/she does not comply with the mandatory prevention measures that are currently being enforced. 

My casita has a screen porch, but the center of the house is open at about the top two feet of the walls to the area outside that is screened in.  Critters don't seem to have any problem getting into the house.  For example, today when I walked out of the house to the porch, there was a bird that had flown in through a gap above the screen and roof.  I had already asked my mom to send me a mosquito net for my bed, since I really don't want large bugs landing on my face in the middle of the night.   It should arrive in the next week.  I have seen a few mosquitos since I have been here, but not a lot. 

Bottom line, this news is not good!