Breaking Down Beauty: Tampons & Dioxins on The Thinnest Skin

Why start with dioxins, you ask?  Well, this whole discussion about possibly toxic beauty got started with two things.  

The first was a rumor I heard in the late nineties and only recently asked Seth, my chemistry guru, about.  What I heard was something along the lines of, "I don't use mainstream tampons anymore because they bleach them and they get contaminated with dioxin."  Of course, I had no idea what dioxin was, but I also don't use tampons (I'm weird that way), so I didn't really think about it again until...

The second was information that I came across online that stated there are several "toxic" ingredients being used in the cosmetics industry.  The information seemed to be presented in a pretty reasonable way and I'm no chemist, but I tried just doing a general search online and came up with all kinds of things being used in cosmetics that various people were claiming to be toxic.  My thought was, "Why are they allowed to put all this stuff into cosmetics?!"  

Instead of letting the panic continue, I called Seth and and gave him the skinny.  He felt it was an interesting thing to research.  Since I had just remembered the tampon/dioxin rumor, we started there.  So, in case you were worried, we do realize that tampons aren't cosmetic.  [read more...]

Breaking Down Beauty: Definitions on The Thinnest Skin

Some Basic Definitions from Seth:

Before proceeding we should first agree on the definition of the following key terms: chemical, toxic, organic, synthetic chemical, natural chemical.  [read more...]

Breaking Down Beauty on The Thinnest Skin

I have spent the last four days getting my house ready for visitors from California and Utah (for my birthday).  Lots of dusting and furniture moving and reorganizing and more laundry than you can shake a stick at.  During my breaks from extreme housecleaning, I have been researching cosmetic ingredients and terms for a series that Seth and I will be doing on The Thinnest Skin called Breaking Down Beauty.

Breaking Down Beauty: Introduction

There is a glut of misinformation out there about beauty products and cosmetic ingredients.  It can be very hard to figure out what is true and what is misunderstood.  Misinterpretation of scientific findings can lead to erroneous and alarmist statements.  Having worked in the natural foods industry (which includes beauty products), I heard a lot of different things from supposedly reliable sources and I never thought to question the accuracy of the information or do my own research.

These days it is also becoming more difficult to separate fact from fiction because certain key words appear to have been redefined by the industry.  Seth, PhD in Chemistry from MIT, has volunteered/been coerced into exploring the different meanings of toxic, organic, synthetic, natural and chemical.  Are these terms just savvy advertising?  A way for one cosmetic company to slam another?  Or are there real reasons to worry about what companies are adding to their products?  I imagine it may be a mix of all three.

The aim of this series is to try to help you (and me, because I want to know too) sort through all the marketing, hype and misconceptions.  [read more...]