snake oil, revisited

[anotheranon]

From L., who knows more about this sort of thing than I:

A slightly less fun link: the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep personal product safety report. Turns out a lot of the snake oil isn't just ineffective, it's bad for you - but the FDA signs off on it anyway.

Unsure whether this will change my makeup/lotion/etc. habits or not. MAC shows up nowhere on the "avoid" or "recommended" lists, so my inner MACattacker says not to worry too much ;)

Having said this, some of the cautions about eye care and eye makeup ingredients give me pause. I never like to take chances with my eyesight. Next time I get mascara, for example, I'm going to look at this list first.

Comments

[geekchick]

To be honest, what I took away from this was "everything on the planet is going to kill you". Some of their listings frankly strike me as scaremongering, especially when you get into the explanations: tocopherol (vitamin E) is listed as a cancer concern because it "may be contaminated with impurities linked to cancer or other significant health problems"? Okay, but nearly anything could be contaminated with impurities linked to cancer or other health problems. (They're not in California, are they? ;)) I think the site's idea is a great, but I confess to being a little skeptical of this particular implementation.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

A healthy skepticism is a good thing. What I took away were the number of ingredients that they simply don't know about - but include anyway.

I think it's also important to remember that a lot of these products - especially the cosmetics - are vanity items. They're not necessary for a medical condition the way medicines are, so if anything gives me pause, I'm not missing much if I have to give it up :P

I am grateful for the eye product evaluation though - I'll risk an allergic reaction but I'm going to try not to put potentially toxic substances in my eyes!