I‘m going to be pretty honest with you right now. Cleaning up my makeup drawer from toxic makeup was one of the last healthy lifestyle choices I adopted. And this is coming from me. Me who was gluten-free before gluten-free was a thing.

I nixed sugar a decade ago along with corn syrup, food containing preservatives, and conventionally farmed meat with hormones and antibiotics.

So that’s my confession to you right now, it was easier for me to be cane sugar-free than it was for me to ditch my toxic makeup in the form of my Urban Decay eye shadow palette and Stila lipgloss.    

It’s a way many of us women express our unique style. So why toss out perfectly good cosmetics that you can easily pick up at Sephora and CVS?

But that’s all of us assuming the cosmetics placed in the pretty display at CVS is good. 

The Dirty Truth About What’s in Our Toxic Makeup

We often forget that our skin is our largest organ, absorbing whatever we slather and powder on ourselves. Just think, if there are prescription pain patches and hormonal birth control patches we can place on our skin to influence our internal bodies, why wouldn’t other items like cosmetics have a play in our internal health?

There’s a helpful phrase I heard a long time ago that applies, If you wouldn’t eat it, don’t put it on your body! 

With that in mind, this is a list of just some of the harmful ingredients that could be lurking in your cosmetic drawer:

• Lead (clearly a toxic substance!) was found in a whopping 61 percent of the 33 name-brand lipsticks tested.

• Paraben is a toxic chemical found in makeup that has been shown to imitate estrogen  which can increase the risk for tumors in breast tissue.
  

• Phthalates are a plastic-type of chemical and were found in the majority of the 72 products tested by the Environmental Working Group.  Studies have shown women in their peak fertility years have significantly higher phthalate amounts than all other age groups. The hypothesis behind this is that women of childbearing age are more likely to use toxic makeup than all other age categories. The scary truth for these women? Phthalates have been connected to birth defects. 
  

  They’re endocrine disruptors, have been linked to cancer, can cause developmental and reproductive issues. They’re so dangerous that they have been prohibited from makeup created in the European Union. Yet, they’re still commonly found in makeup created in the good US of A.

• Synthetic fragrances are listed as one of the top five known allergens. They’ve been known to trigger asthma and have been linked to inflammation, an issue for many with autoimmune disorders.

•  Formaldehyde is a chemical the U.S. Food and Drug Administration identifies as a carcinogen. According to a 2010 article, roughly 20 percent of cosmetics were found to have the cancer-causing ingredient, Formaldehyde.

For transparency purposes, there are affiliate links in this post. Meaning, if you click through a link, our family receives a commission with no further cost to you. You can see more here. 

The logic should be clear. If we eliminate toxic ingredients in our cosmetics and beauty regimen, we help our health.

 

As a word of caution, just because a product says organic or natural doesn’t mean it’s safe. Be mindful to read the small print. Are there added ingredients that don’t sound natural? Take a look at EWG and type in the ingredient name to see how safe it is.

In my next post, I will go over some of the clean cosmetic brands I trust and some of my favorite products from them.

The Average Woman Puts 168 Chemicals on Her Body Every Day! This Is What Can Happen To Your Cancer Riskhttps://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/05/13/toxic-chemicals-cosmetics.aspx

Mejia, L. (2019, June 11). Formaldehyde in Cosmetics: What’s the Verdict? Retrieved from https://www.womenshealthmag.com/style/a19908043/formaldehyde-in-cosmetics-what-s-the-verdict/