I truly believe that you are what you eat. As a result, I'm an obsessive label-reader. It's terrible, but in a good way. It significantly reduces the amount of processed foods I eat, and when it comes to my skin care lotions, it has steered me towards products with less fillers and scary-sounding chemicals. I mean, it's nearly impossible to do so if you want to enjoy life, but if you can at least limit the amount of toxins you ingest or come into contact with, then you should, right?
With all this, I never thought to extend my label-reading to my make up before. That is, until I found a new website to feed my obsession sickness interest, www.CometicsDatabase.com. This site is amazing - it rates the toxicity levels of your skin care products and cosmetics. Talk about eye-opening! This site even tells you what the toxic ingredients in your product have been linked to, such as:
- Cancer
- Developmental/reproductive toxicity (YIKES!!!)
- Allergies/immunotoxicity
- Other concerns such as: Neurotoxicity, Endocrine disruption, Organ system toxicity (non-reproductive), Irritation (skin, eyes, or lungs), Enhanced skin absorption, Biochemical or cellular level changes
Changes on the cellular level???!!! Neurotoxicity??? Are you shitting me??? I have now trashed about half the products in my make up drawer, much to my relief and dismay (make up is NOT cheap). Fortunately my new foundation from Shu Uemera is a 3 (on a scale of 0 to 10, 0 being no toxicity at all), but all of my blushes were a 9!!! My new Shu Uemera eyeshadows are a 7, which isn't THAT terrible, but do I really want that so close to my eyeballs?! I'm compromising and saving those for special occasions...gimme a break, I just bought them two months ago!
Fortunately my moisturizers and lotions are all in the 2-4 range, but I had to throw out my hair stuff. Oh well, I've been looking for an excuse to treat myself to L'Occitane shampoo and conditioner anyways (they are each a 3, yay)! While my toothpaste is safe (thank god), I have not yet had the guts to look up my lip glosses (because you ingest that shit every time you lick your lips) or my deodorant.
Like I said, it's a sickness. Really, I can't help it, I need to know!!! Sometimes I think ignorance is bliss, and I really wasn't sure I wanted to know. But, at least I am now armed with a tool to make better informed decisions going forward!
