simple + green

Many of us have heard this story for some time now: a freakishly high percentage of women in Marin County end up developing breast cancer, and overall higher rates of breast cancer than the national average.

The cause of such a concentration has eluded doctors and experts for years.

Could it be something environmental? Chemical? Some smart teenagers started looking a little closer at the safety of things they took for granted and came up with an industry-changing organization.

The SFGate.com article Makeup For Teens Getting A Green Makeover posted today, profiles the Teens for Safe Cosmetics, a group whose focus is how to make cosmetics safer for everyone.

The group, started as an offshoot of Search For A Cause - a cancer awareness group that has grown to about 1,000 members with chapters in the Bay Area and New York - recently held its third annual National Summit.

Not content with simple steps, the group is serious about its work:

Since its formation, the group has produced award-winning videos and lobbied for the California Safe Cosmetics Act, which took effect in January 2007. It requires cosmetic companies that sell products in California to label ingredients that are on state or federal lists of chemicals that may cause reproductive harm or cancer. Last March, the group held a “Miss Treatment” beauty pageant in Santa Monica that called attention to the use of potentially harmful ingredients by one of the largest makers of nail polish.

One of the suspect cosmetic ingredients are called Phthalates which act like fake estrogen. Given their composition, Phthalates carry a risk to 3 major groups:
1. girls going through puberty, as chemicals can affect rapidly developing breast tissue
2. males: specific to their reproductive systems
3. possibly fetuses

Teens for Safe Cosmetics is working to with lawmakers to get Phthalates banned, as well as production of lead in lipstick.

You have to root for an organization like this. Walk through any department store cosmetic area and it’s pretty easy to detect that that something toxic is within them.

How achievable are their goals? According to Mark Schapiro, author of “Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power” (Chelsea Green, 2007), they may have more power than they think:

“The cosmetics industry is 10 times more scared of teens (than adult purchasers),” he said. “They can’t arrest you if you show up at the front door of L’Oreal, and they can’t call you a bunch of crazy environmentalists. You are their future customers. You are a fountain of enormous energy for change.”

Check out Teens for Safe Cosmetics for more information on events and education, and how to get involved.