Is your Shampoo or Other Personal Care Products Making you Fat?

Paula Baillie-Hamilton, an expert on metabolism and environmental toxins, was one of the first to make a link between the obesity epidemic and the increase in environmental chemicals. Baillie-Hamilton argued that exposure to chemicals can damage your body's natural weight-control mechanisms. She calls toxic chemicals that act as endocrine disruptors "chemical calories."

Environmental researchers now call these chemical calories "obesogens." These organic pollutants can derail the hormonal mechanisms that control your weight.

According to Grist:
"... [I]t is impossible, now, to tease out how much of obesity is caused by chemicals, and how much by energy balance. They're intertwined, anyway, with imbalances in appetite-regulating hormones like leptin and ghrelin causing us to want to eat more of the available food ... [S]teer clear of Bisphenol-A ... [and] shampoos, cosmetics, and soaps containing phthalates."

Even buying organic shampoo and other personal care products may not protect you. As the Center for Environmental Health recently reported:

"Dozens of shampoos, lotions, toothpastes,and other personal care products sold by national retailers including Target, Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, Whole Foods and other stores are mislabeled as organic, in violation of California law, according to a lawsuit filed … by the Center for Environmental Health (CEH)."

Several of the products contain potentially toxic ingredients, including disrupting hormones, despite being labeled as organic.

Sources:
Grist June 28, 2011
Obesity Reviews April 4, 2011
Center for Environmental Health June 16, 2011

Comments from Janis at JESorganics.com

It may sound like a joke to think about your shampoo or any of your personal care products making you fat.  However, the majority of personal care products contain a host of toxic chemicals in addition to endocrine disruptors.  Endocrine distrupors cause premature puberty, obesity and increased risk of cancer, just to name a few.  As far as your shampoo is concerned, the primary endocrine-disrupting chemical culprits are phthalates. Phthalates are used as plasticizers in everything from vinyl flooring to detergents, hoses, raincoats, adhesives, air fresheners, and toys, but they're also found in some soaps, shampoos, lotions and nail polish. One 2002 study by the Environmental Working Group detected phthalates in nearly three-quarters of personal care products tested, noting that:

"Major loopholes in federal law allow the … cosmetics industry to put unlimited amounts of phthalates into many personal care products with no required testing, no required monitoring of health effects, and no required labeling."

Phthalates are not only being linked to weight gain … they are the same group of "gender-bending" chemicals also causing males of all species to become more female.

We founded JES Organics because of our research into ingredients and toxic chemicals.  Toxic chemicals are everywhere and they have an accumulative effect on our bodies.  Over time, our bodies start breaking down from the toxic onslaught. 

Please become an educated consumer and read your labels.  It is highly unlikely that you will find non-toxic quality products at large high end or low end stores.  And if you think you are getting quality by buying expensive brand name products or even products promoted by doctors, think again!

Read the label, don't be fooled by false marketing on labels (natural, organic, dermatologist tested or recommended, hypoallergenic, etc).  These words are not regulated and have no standards.  We joined the Compact for Safe Cosmetics immediately upon starting JES Organics and we continue to be a company in full compliance with full disclosure of our ingredients. 

Not Just a Pretty Face

Not Just a Pretty Face
The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry
By Stacy Malkan

Lead in lipstick? 1,4 dioxane in baby soap? Coal tar in shampoo? How is this possible?

Simple. The $35 billion cosmetics industry is so powerful that they've kept themselves unregulated for decades.

Not one cosmetic product has to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration before hitting the market. Incredible?

Consider this:
• The European Union has banned more than 1,100 chemicals from cosmetics. The United States has banned just 10.

• Only 11% of chemicals used in cosmetics in the US have been assessed for health and safety – leaving a staggering 89% with unknown or undisclosed effects.

• More than 70% of all personal care products may contain phthalates, which are linked to birth defects and infertility.

• Many baby soaps are contaminated with the cancer-causing chemical 1,4 dioxane.

It's not just women who are affected by this chemists' brew. Shampoo, deodorant, face lotion and other products used daily by men, women and children contain hazardous chemicals that the industry claims are "within acceptable limits." But there's nothing acceptable about daily multiple exposures to carcinogenic chemicals — from products that are supposed to make us feel healthy and beautiful.

Not Just a Pretty Face delves deeply into the dark side of the beauty industry, and looks to hopeful solutions for a healthier future. This scathing investigation peels away less-than-lovely layers to expose an industry in dire need of an extreme makeover.

15 percent of the purchase price of each book sold benefits the national Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, administered by the Breast Cancer Fund, through December 31, 2012.

About the Contributor(s)
Stacy Malkan is Communications Director of Health Care Without Harm and media strategist for the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a national coalition working to eliminate hazardous chemicals from personal care products. Stacy is a former journalist and newspaper publisher who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Check out this video

http://www.storyofcosmetics.org.

9 Things You May Not know ABOUT YOUR MAKEUP

1. The US FDA does not regulate the cosmetic industry.

2. The EU has banned approximately 1,100 ingredients found in personal care products, while the US has only banned 10 ingredients.

3. Due to the lack of regulation in the USA, the words “natural,” “pure,” and “organic” do not guarantee the products have these characteristics.

4. Cosmetic companies are now manufacturing products with particle sizes so small (“micronized” and “nano” sized) they can penetrate the layers of your skin and settle into the fatty tissues of your body.

5. The average woman ingests an average of four pounds of lipstick over a lifetime.

6. Most mineral makeup contains an ingredient called Bismuth Oxychloride, which is a bio-cumulative metal and a well known irritant to the skin.

7. The most toxic cosmetic product is mascara; this product may contain mercury.

8. Many makeup products, including lipstick, contain the ingredient carmine, which is a bright red pigment obtained from the exoskeleton of a beetle.

9. Many cosmetic products contain parabens. Parabens are broad-band preservatives which have been found in breast cancer tumors during research biopsies.

Are your mineral cosmetics making you itch? It’s the bismuth oxychloride! Afterglow Cosmetics offers a full line of bismuth oxychloride free color cosmetics.