I
am one mom with a pile of books and a crate load of emails trying to sort out
what in the world to feed my kids, lather on their skin and let them play with
every day - just a mom, trying to answer these very basic questions. VERY
basic questions.
Sometimes
I get muddled in an expanded awareness of the many potential hazards that lie
in my family's path.
But I will tell you, that
my instincts to pounce were confirmed last night. In an attempt to
procure an after hours passport photo for my daughter’s fall soccer application, we made a special trip to Walgreen’s after
dinner. After the clerk took her picture, we were told to wait 10
minutes. Duh – let’s shop!
Ummm…. Not so
fun. I am not kidding you, I am D-O-N-E. Almost every
item we picked up was either a synthetic explosion waiting to happen - or it
was plastered with a visual of Miley Cyrus.
(Note: if you are ever
stranded in a mass market shopping venue and need to entertain a young person
familiar with the Disney franchise, make a game of counting how many times you
can find your favorite character on notebooks, dolls, lotion, greeting cards,
high fructose food items and lip gloss.) I digress.
Anyway, here is in black
and white. This stuff is just horrible – it smells bad, it is loaded
with harmful ingredients, manufacturing it is a waste of our precious resources
and we can’t even dispose of it all properly when it has reached the expected
1/2-life that our throw-away society accepts as the norm.
Based on that fly through
Walgreen’s, I am more sure than ever that it is time to step up and
say, “Really! Enough!”
So
in honor of Earth Day this year it is time to give our beauty industry in
America a make-over!
Let’s take some of the
science the questions the safety of cosmetics, and promote it to build Awareness. Then
we can inspire Action and invite consumers to examine the
brands they trust and decide whether they indeed deserve their
loyalty. For those who want to find healthier options for their families,
it’s time to identify some greener Alternatives. And
last, the exercise would be never-ending (and demoralizing) if Advocacy efforts
did not promote federal legislation that favors citizens and properly governs
corporate concerns.
This recipe of
intelligent, proactive and positive response equals The Girlcott, which will take place
in San Francisco at the Sports Basement in
the Presidio on Saturday, April 18th.
We are fighting back with
knowledge, buying power and a community’s commitment to clean up the world for
our children.
As we assembled the
various pieces of this event, it was critical to confirm that this was not the
vision of a fear-mongering mother and a few loyal lieutenants who would
encounter only ridicule from a confused and resistant public . So
before attempting our cosmetic coup, we reached out to some key experts – other
moms.
Once we rolled out the
vision, unanimously, they supported with offers to drop off the piles of
products they had been collecting in their own garages, volunteer at the event
and generously devote their expertise to launch The Girlcott brand.
Okay, so a little momentum
is a good thing. Next stop was the woman who literally wrote the
book, Stacy Malkan. Her
work, Not Just a Pretty Face, directly
references the word “girlcott” and explains that it is not just about saying
no, but about saying yes to healthier, safer options. When I
contacted her, she was thrilled to learn that the phrase was coming to life by
becoming a small movement in San Francisco. She offered to make it
truly legitimate and participate as our featured speaker. Score one
for the good guys!
Another critical piece of
the puzzle was to approach the organizations that have been devotedly digging
away at these issues for many years, thought leaders including the Environmental Working Group, the Breast Cancer Fund, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and Teens Turning Green. With their
broad base of constituents and considerable collective reputations, The
Girlcott would have a foundation upon which to build its debut. Love
it! Love it! Love it! All in.
So the next step was to
find a location, which was enthusiastically offered by one of the Bay Area’s
most progressive and environmentally devoted retailers, the Sports
Basement. A company that has pioneered the power of building
community amongst their customers and employees, they immediately latched on to
the vision and offered a premier venue where we could invite participants to
experience The Girlcott as part of the Sports Basement’s Earth Day Expo in the
Presidio.
Almost forgot, the
City. This stuff would be bound for hazardous waste disposal – would
they even allow us to pull this off? Within a few phone calls, we
found just the person who not only understood what we were hoping to do, but
more importantly why. And as the Toxics Reduction Coordinator
for SF Environment she
was only too happy to help facilitate an effort to keep these products out of
our landfills and our ever-compromised waterways. Permission
granted.
The brands that then jumped
aboard to offer their healthier alternatives were excited to find an outlet of
consumers who represented the ideal customer base – educated, inspired and
actively looking for greener cleaner replacements.
There you have it – The Girlcott. And now all we
need is YOU and everyone you know to visit us on April 18th to help us
build a mountain of mascaras! We want to show the world we deserve
better!
You must have plenty of
products to pop into our pile. Whether updating my “look,” chasing
away smile lines or attempting to repair sun-damaged skin, the investment I
have made in my own beauty products would easily equal the cost of a small
fleet of Prius vehicles, one in every color.
Although I have never
added up my tab, my mom and I did try to chase down a ballpark estimate for her
weekly manicures. She has had a standing 9:00 a.m. Saturday
appointment with the same aesthetician for 38 years. The cost for
these regular visits has scaled from probably $10 back in the 70’s to $60 today
– plus tip. So if you plug in an average number of $30, and factor
in only 30 trips a year, we came up with $34,200!
That’s just for her
nails. Other than this weekly indulgence, my mom is not an extravagant
woman. But when you really take a look, it is astonishing to think
about how much cash we pour into looking good.
Do a little mental math of
your own – what do you think you spend on beauty products and services every
year? And what percentage of the items you purchased are now sitting
on a shelf in your bathroom, half-used, expired, stashed and forgotten in favor
of a new shiny shade or promising “revolutionary” technology?
Beyond the issue of
expense, a growing concern is that we really don’t know much about the
chemicals we are layering on our bodies, especially since many of them permeate
our skin and enter into our bloodstreams.
Since 1938, cosmetics
manufacturers have been able to lock in legislation that assures
extraordinarily loose regulatory standards maintained by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Q&A
taken directly from the Agency’s Web site provides insight into how slack their
oversight remains:
“Does the FDA approve
cosmetics before they go on the market?
The FDA's legal authority
over cosmetics is different from other products regulated by the agency, such
as drugs, biologics, and medical devices. Cosmetic products and ingredients
are not subject to FDA premarket approval authority, with the
exception of color additives.
Who is responsible for
substantiating the safety of cosmetics?
Cosmetic firms are
responsible for substantiating the safety of their products and ingredients
before marketing.”
So just to clarify, when
you pick up a bottle of your family’s favorite shampoo and look at a label
filled with multi-syllabic, impossible to pronounce ingredients, those
chemicals have never been tested for their long-term impact on human
health.
What’s the big
deal? Well, because we use so many cosmetics and personal care
products every day, there is growing concern that the chemical fall-out of
these many exposures is contributing to health concerns such as early puberty in
girls, male infertility and breast cancer to name a few significant issues we
increasingly face as a society today.
If this seems a bit
ridiculous, I agree. But I assure you, I have read the books,
interviewed the doctors, scoured the reports and come to the conclusion that
our daily dose of chemicals is a ticking time bomb, especially for our
children.
So while it’s impossible
to purify our lives from all exposures to toxins, we can certainly minimize
them. And as I’ve written before, I have removed bags and bags and bags of
products from our household. No matter how much I have
elected to eliminate, I always find something that previously escaped scrutiny
and I add it to our collection in the garage. The process will
probably not end until we stop buying commercially produced products altogether
– not going to happen.
Since I have had so many
people ask me what I do with all of these discarded toiletries, I have always
recommended that they call Hazardous
Waste to have them picked up because they don’t belong in the
landfill, nor should the be poured down the drains.
If we discard our
half-filled bottles baby bubbles and they are buried in the trash, the
chemicals will leech into our already polluted soil and groundwater, creating
an ever more toxic mire to contend with in the future. If they are
washed into our water systems, many of the persistent synthetic agents such as
triclosan, the workhorse of anti-bacterial soaps, are not removable through
standard water purification methods and they travel into the environment to
continue wreaking their hormonal havoc.
And think of the packaging
that we so cavalierly cast away! When we do not recycle the plastic
that houses the majority of our cosmetics and beauty products, the opportunity to
reuse those materials is lost forever.
All this adds up to an
industry that is not so pretty!
So what to
do? Well, the first step is to spread the word and attempt to engage
a broader audience in the debate that is gaining credence. Remember
that although scientists have been expressing concern about Bisphenol-A (BPA)
for decades, within one year of consumer outrage, the chemical has been all but
banished from our plastic water bottles and advocates are heavily pursuing the
industry to eliminate it from food packaging and other insidious sources of
exposure.
Educate the public and
they will guide the response.
Next, it’s time to rid our
households of some of these items and make certain that the companies
manufacturing them are aware of our choice NOT to pump our kids with
preservatives, petrochemicals and parfums. By clearing our shelves
of brands we have trusted throughout our lifetimes, we can send a powerful
message to these companies that if they want our business, they have to offer
safer formulations for their customers.
In the meantime, we can
shift our dollars to support the companies that have embraced the science to
develop healthier products, not only as reflected on their ingredient labels,
but also in their more sustainable manufacturing and packaging practices.
And as far as the big
picture is concerned, there is federal legislation, now on the floor of the
House and Senate, entitled the Kid-Safe
Chemicals Act. By attempting to protect America’s most
vulnerable consumers from the unintended cellular side effects of carcinogenic,
mutagenic and otherwise disruptive synthetic agents, Kid-Safe is the most
promising attempt to corral the cowboy chemical giants and their lip-smacking
lobbyists into FINALLY testing their ingredients for safety prior to pouring
them into our babies’ bathtubs.
We asked ourselves,
Can one lipstick change
the world?
How about 1,000?
Add some more zeros.
Let’s see what it
takes.
We have to start
somewhere. Why not now?
Open your
drawers. Open your pocketbooks. Open your minds.
Wake up. Pay
attention. Connect the dots.
Take precaution.
Do it for
yourself. Do it for your children. Do it for your planet.
We can say
no. Or we can say yes.
Our bodies. Our
babies. Our future.
Show the world. We deserve better.
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