Note: If you choose to do nothing for yourself with this post's info, please consider doing something for the health of our beautiful young men, women and children!!
This is the provocative question asked in two books I read recently. When I first began this blog it was right after Dad died and it was a way for me to record what was going on...the loss, the fear I would also lose my ailing mom and brother, the sense of overwhelm from lots of travel and being "promoted solita" to chief cook, bottle washer and executor in the family, the delicate balance between the role of being both "child and mom" to mom and caring for my own family. Everything. Whatever storms of chaos swirl around me, writing gives me great peace, especially when I can weave together a story of my passions....people, food, and discoveries.
From writing just a few thoughts a month to now about five a week, my ideas for "finding peace" have exploded and thanks to a couple of readers who are way ahead of me, I added a new leaf to OGT a couple of months ago called "Dressing Table Beauty Bites". I wanted to share healthy skin and body care "foods" I had found outside the normal ones I use every day, which I assumed were the very best.
Many of you have asked about this campaign logo on my sidebar. My dad always said assumptions were "the mother of all *****up's". You insert your expletive of choice. Boy, are they ever. I have known about the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics since it started up in 2004, founded by the Breast Cancer Fund and 9 other organizations. I even looked up the product lines I use but didn't pay a whole lot of attention to what I was reading because I believed in the companies whose products I bought. Like many other companies, in their trademark are the words "pure" and "safe" and so on...others use "natural". So be it, I thought.
Funny thing because I have learned not to assume anything about my food. I want what I want and I want transparency. If it is organic..show me. Better yet, show me twice with a secondary seal of approval from other organic certifiers like the Oregon Tilth or QAI. If it is local, how is it grown? I eat only whole, plant-based foods and no processed ones and so I can do this pretty easily and be at peace with how I decide to feed my body and spend my money.
One of the books I read recently was this one:
There is database that you can plug either your company or its ingredients into and the products will receive a hazard score. You can also check to see which companies have signed the Compact for Safe Cosmetics which is a pledge of transparency, a pledge to examine products for toxins, to replace any toxins with safer ingredients and to be held accountable. 500 companies started out as signers. Now, there are over 1300 and many that should have stepped up to the plate first, are absent or weirdly late on board. What deeply saddens me are the companies that market on "safe", "pure" "organic" whatever trademarked words they choose, but are not signers. Words are free and a free for all. And, they are what hooked an assumer like me on a trademark, not the truth.
Now, on a mission to make sure what I eat through my skin is as wholesome as what's on my fork...peace=toxin-free...health=long term...this is what I expect from my skincare and other body care goodies. Show me your hazard score. Be a signer of the Compact. Be compliant. Then, I decide whether that company is good enough to give my body and my money to. After all, it is food...and like Sally Field says, "I have this one life, this one body".
A special thanks to gal pal SWH for sharing this particular adventure with me. Because of her insistence "Dig deeper!", we have made some wonderful discoveries. Our mission is to lower our use of toxic "stuff" that goes in our bodies either through food or skin food. We aim to lower our "body burden" as low as it can go and be at peace that we have made the very best choices from what is available. And, that's what we are hunting down, the very best, with scores to prove it.
And, now that I have this information, this is what I am going to do with it...
Open the box I just got and use our newest toxin-free discovery. Think I'll go wash my face... I love this stuff!!
For one of many recent news articles about pending legislation, here is a link:
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/how-safe-are-your-cosmetics-safe-cosmetics-act-of-2010-wants-to-find-out/19562564
And then, here is this heartwrenching shocker...7????
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/09/puberty-hits-girls-as-you_n_676020.html
And here is the link for the Compact signers, Skin Deep database and more:
http://www.safecosmetics.org/display.php?modin=50
If you are on this mission, too, please join us!!! Email me and let's have some good, clean fun.
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