Environmental Working Group & Skin Deep

Don't go shopping for personal care products without first checking the EWG site http://www.ewg.org/ and especially Skin Deep http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/index.php. I had a spa party on Tuesday night and afterwards I checked Arbonne products. They tend to be in the moderate range with a rating of 3-6. Which isn't bad considering 7-10 is high and many of the common products found in most pharmacies fall into the hazardous zone. A lot of the US cosmetics companies and personal care products are in the database, which was a huge undertaking to develop. Thankfully it is the EWG that is pushing for all ingredients to be listed and for safer cosmetics to be on the shelves.

In Canada the push for the same standards isn't really underway. Still the Skin Deep site can be used to find products available in Canada. Suki's lemongrass facial wash/scrub is listed with a rating of 2. I purchased a sample box of all the Suki products. Most are in the low to moderate range, Transformative Facial Clay has a rating of 4 and Velvet Facial Cream has a rating of 3, the two highest ratings this line obtains. Available at Planet Organic, or online at http://www.upurea.com/

Nadarra (see previous post) is another Canadian line in the database. Highest rating is a 3, which is in the low end of the moderate rating zone. I recommend this line and hope one day Nadarra will be available in a shop in Victoria. Available online at http://www.nadarra.com/

Juliet's Room Organics, a BC company in Vancouver, is currently entering their products into the database. If you search their name they do come up which means they are registered, and I emailed them to which they responded putting all the ingredients into the database takes time. Available at http://www.julietsroom.com/ or Safura 635 Fort Street Victoria BC. I haven't tried this line yet.

I will admit, once you start using this site you might just throw out everything in your medicine cabinet. Not a bad idea really, with all the other toxins in our food, water, etc, maybe making changes in your personal care is reducing the exposure. It certainly is another step towards going green.

http://www.safecosmetics.org/ the campaign for Safe Cosmetics