Are our cosmetics safe? Some people say no. Increasingly, experts are looking to the chemicals in make-up for the answers to cancer rates and other health problems. Personally, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about–especially if you don’t wear make-up every day–but a group of teenagers in Marin disagrees with me. They think we should all think about what exactly makes up (heh) our make-up. I wrote about this issue in the most recent issue of the Pacific Sun. Excerpt:
Just when you start to feel that you’re getting a handle on all the environmental hazards around you, another one pops up like a toxic bubble.
In fact, a group of young women from Marin worries that hazard might actually be a toxic tube of lipstick. Those girls want everyone to be aware of the possible dangers of cosmetics, and they aren’t stopping until teenagers nationwide join their cause.
Teens for Safe Cosmetics started in 2005 as a division of Search for the Cause, a nonprofit agency devoted to understanding Marin’s high breast-cancer rates. As Teens for Safe Cosmetics approaches its third anniversary, it’s showing no sign of slowing down—it now boasts hundreds of members, a fledgling branch in New York and its own product line to be distributed by Whole Foods this fall.
I also have a piece of satire coming out in the upcoming issue of the Wittenburg Door. Keep an eye out for it.