Check out the Grist Interview with Stacy Malkan,
author of “Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry”

ABC TV in CHICAGO MAY 15 — SEE CLIP

ABC TV, 7 News San Francisco: Beyond the Headlines
interview with Charlotte Brody and Stacy Malkan airing Sunday, June 1 at 10 a.m.

Go Green Summit FREE Webinar — May 20, 6 p.m. EDT
Giving the Beauty Industry a Makeover with Stacy Malkan
Click here to register for this free one-hour teleconference

You might expect a shampoo labeled “pure, natural and organic” to be, well … pure, natural and organic. And so you might be surprised, and ticked off, to learn that many leading “natural” body care products are contaminated with a mad-made carcinogen, according to new product tests.

The Organic Consumers Association and author David Steinman shook up (and hopefully shook awake) the natural products industry with their report that 46 out of 100 brands of “organic” or “natural” body care products contained 1,4 dioxane, a probable human carcinogen that is the byproduct of a nasty petrochemical process involving ethylene oxide.

Contaminated brands included JASON Pure Natural & Organic, Giovanni Organic Cosmetics, Kiss My Face, Nature’s Gate Organics, and Citrus Magic 100% Natural Dish Liquid. (See full list of products here.) These companies should immediately reformulate. Consumers must be able to trust that we can use products labeled “organic” without rubbing carcinogens in our hair or on our dishes. In order to gain that trust, the natural products industry must adhere to strict standards that disallow all nasty petrochemical processes. –Stacy Malkan

The beauty industry is sitting not-too-pretty after a wave of toxic scandals. Several states are now pushing for greater control over the virtually unregulated $50-billion industry. Two bills just introduced in California would eliminate toxic ingredients from certain personal care products; New Jersey, Connecticut and other states are following suit. So what is Big Beauty to do? Hire lobbyists and launch a public relations campaign to convince people their products are safe. Haven’t we heard this one before?

The good news is, while the mainstream industry fights for its right to use toxic chemicals, a more hopeful face of the future is emerging. Efforts are underway in the booming natural products sector to put real meaning behind the terms “natural” and “organic.” Last week, Whole Foods Market became the first major retailer in the US to create a private standard for natural personal care products. Products with the premium seal will be free of synthetic fragrance and some 250 synthetic chemicals, including parabens, PEG compounds and sulfates. Whole Foods’ own 365 brand doesn’t even meet the strict criteria for the premium label (the line will be reformulated). The race to the top is on …

Mary Brune remembers the exact moment she got angry about toxic chemicals. She was nursing her baby Olivia, who had just turned six months old, while watching the evening news. A new study of breast milk from 19 states found that all the milk samples were contaminated with perchorate, a component of rocket fuel. “I’m sitting there on the couch nursing my daughter and I was stunned,” Mary said. “I thought breast milk was as pure as it came as a food source for children, to find out there’s all sorts of stuff in there… I was up all night thinking about it.” Mary didn’t just get mad; she got together with other new mothers and launched a nationwide effort to get toxic chemicals out of breast milk – called Making Our Milk Safe (MOMS).

Andrea Martin launched the Breast Cancer Fund from her living room after her second breast cancer diagnosis. Today, Andrea’s legacy lives on in the only national organization focused solely on preventing breast cancer by eliminating environmental causes of the disease.

So what do breast milk and breast cancer have to do with safe cosmetics? Carcinogens and other harmful chemicals; which do not belong in the environment, in our breast milk, or in the products we slather on our bodies every day. Yet one third of personal care products contain chemicals linked to cancer – even products made by those billion-dollar companies (Revlon, Estee Lauder, Avon) that put pink ribbons on their products to convince you they care about breast cancer (see chapter six, ‘pinkwashing,’ in my book “Not Just a Pretty Face“). But hey, let’s not just get mad or scared, let’s agitate like hell – like Mary, like Andrea – and take our bodies back from the corporate polluters.

Tonight I got to share the stage at the Women’s Building in San Francisco with Mary and two of my other favorite s-heroes, Dr. Sarah Janssen, MD, PhD, MPH, and Lisa Archer of the Breast Cancer Fund and national coordinator of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. These women are changing the world, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart. Join up with MOMS at www.safemilk.org and help prevent breast cancer here.

Baby powders, lotions and shampoos — pure as the driven snow right? Not so much. A new study in Pediatrics Journal shows that using these products on babies markedly increased the levels of toxic chemicals called phthalates in the babies’ bodies.

Decades of research from animal studies shows that phthalates cause infertility, birth defects and other malformations of the male reproductive tract — health problems that have (coincidentally?) been rising in people over the past few decades. Several human studies also indicate that phthalates may adversely affect male reproductive function at levels commonly found in people. Young infants and fetuses are most at risk. So doesn’t it make sense that baby shampoo and lotions should not contain these chemicals?

Unfortunately, most personal care products do contain phthalates (see our 2002 study), and these toxic chemicals are NOT LISTED ON LABELS due to weak labeling laws that exempt companies from telling us what’s in fragrance. So how should parents avoid phthalates? The authors of the new study say: “If parents want to decrease exposures, then we recommend limiting the amount of infant care products used, and not to apply lotions or powders unless indicated for a medical reason.”

So that’s what it’s come to: avoiding baby products. This, of course, should be a wake up call to the beauty industry. Parents and women of childbearing age can stop using your products to protect themselves from exposure to chemicals linked to birth defects and infertility. Or you (I’m talking about you, Estee Lauder, Revlon, Johnson & Johnson, L’Oreal) can stop using phthalates, and stop making excuses.

Until then, consumers are advised to use fewer products, choose products with no added synthetic fragrance, and call the companies to let them know what you think about toxic exposures that put our reproductive health at risk.

Read more about phthalates, and the beauty industry’s resistance to change, in Chapter 2 of my new book, “Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry.” Buy the book at www.SafeCosmetics.org and a portion of proceeds will benefit the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics’ efforts to give the beauty industry a makeover. Stacy Malkan

It’s hard to believe, but beauty industry spokesman John Bailey is now defending the use of mercury in personal care products. “It’s added at very low levels, and for good reason,” Bailey told the Associated Press. There is a good reason to add a known neurotoxin to mascara? As toxicologist Carl Herbrandson explained in the story, mercury can retard brain development in children and fetuses, and can also cause neurological symptoms in adults. “Mercury is bad, basically in all forms that get into the body,” Herbrandson said.

Obviously, cosmetics don’t need to be one more source of mercury exposure. Yet John Bailey and the billion-dollar beauty companies he represents never met a toxic chemical they won’t defend. In the San Francisco Chronicle, Bailey defended lead in lipstick, yet said: “The principal concern about the safety of lead is ingestion by children.”

Where does Bailey think children come from? That’s right, from the bodies of women of childbearing age, who are at risk of getting exposed to lead and mercury from personal care products — for no good reason. Stacy Malkan

What a wild ride it’s been! I’ll be processing for weeks to come, but for now I’ll report: The crowds really turn out to hear about the Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry. More than 1,500 people attended rallies and book readings in 10 US cities for the inaugural “Not Just a Pretty Face” national book tour.

My favorite encounter was at the last stop, Elliot Bay Book Store in Seattle. A gray-haired, hippie-looking guy walked up to me before the event and announced that he didn’t want to be there. Toxic chemicals in cosmetics didn’t have much to do with him, he said, but he got stuck with the job of videotaping the event for local cable. I couldn’t help watching him as I spoke (was he sleeping?) and at the end he was the first to raise his hand (oh god). He said that the talk brought tears to his eyes, and he saw that this problem of toxic chemicals is connected to all the other problems - war, poverty, global warming, species extinction - created by bottom-line-driven corporate capitalism that has lost touch with the true needs of people. On that note, and to really get your head spinning about the scope of the problems, check out this 20-minute film by my friend and favorite s-hero Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff.

Also check out some of the press coverage from the “Not Just a Pretty Face” tour: Minneapolis Star Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, KUOW, Missoula Independent, CommonGround, and the Washington Post’s Sprig.com. Stay tuned for more book tour stops in 2008… Stacy Malkan

The FDA is saying they will “look into” the report by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics that 61% of lipsticks tested contain lead. Here’s what FDA should do: test a wide range of lipsticks for lead and publicly report the results, so we can know how far the beauty industry’s lead problem goes. The CSC tests tell us two things: many lipsticks contain lead, and many do not. It’s obviously possible to make lead-free red lipstick. So why aren’t all companies doing so?

As top lead-offender L’Oreal keeps telling the press, their products are in “full compliance with FDA regulations.” Yet there are no FDA regulations limiting lead in lipstick. Now, US Senators are pressuring FDA to take action. Former presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, along with California Sens. Feinstein and Boxer, are calling on FDA to test lipsticks for lead and tell the public what they find. Stay tuned…

The “Not Just a Pretty Face” national road show and book tour is off to a rocking start! The first two rallies in Boston and Portland, Ore., drew more than 100 people each. In Philadelphia, 160 nursing students and faculty came to hear about the book, and we raised money for the 10 year anniversary of the Women’s Health and Environmental Network. Next up: Connecticut Nurses Association in Hartford.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is all over the news since the release of product tests that found lead in 61% of lipstick tested. Campaign spokesperson Stacy Malkan, author of “Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry,” appeared in media interviews across the US and Canada to call attention to the lack of regulatory oversight for personal care products. Here is a sample of coverage:Good Morning America, Reuters, Houston Chronicle, Boston Globe, ABC News Boston, NBC Boston, Lynn Item, Hartford Courant and South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Check out upcoming tour stops in Philadelphia, New York, Albany, Missoula, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Washington State.

Just when you think you’ve heard it all… along comes L’Oreal. New product tests by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics found lead in lipstick — and six of the top 11 most lead- contaminated brands were made by the French company L’Oreal. The titan of the beauty industry responded not by apologizing, not by promising to get the lead out, but by using the same old tired excuses: other products contain more lead than our products; we can’t live in a lead-free world; and we’re in “full compliance with FDA regulations” — which isn’t hard to do because THERE ARE NO REGULATIONS. How dumb does L’Oreal think we are? When Mattel was caught with lead in its toys, the company didn’t argue that there’s more lead in water. They copped responsibility. But not L’Oreal … I guess we’re just not worth it. Take action to clean up L’Oreal!