Choosing Safe Personal Health Care Products

Exposures to harmful chemicals during childhood pose concern because children are more vulnerable to chemicals than are adults. In many ways, children are like sponges for chemicals. Children's skin is 30% thinner than an adults', on average, and can absorb greater amounts of chemicals from the skin surface. They breathe in more air (and air contaminants) relative to their weight than adults, and the blood-brain barrier that helps block chemicals from penetrating brain tissue is not fully formed until a baby reaches 6 months of age. Parents must be particularly careful to choose safe products for their children.

Children's personal care products are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to government and industry failures to protect public health. An extensive body of scientific literature demonstrates that everyone in the world carries in their body hundreds if not thousands of industrial chemicals at any given moment, the result of exposures to contaminants in air, water, and food, and to ingredients in everyday consumer products. No one understands the health implications of our exposures to complex mixtures of low doses of industrial compounds and pollutants.

Gaps in health protections leave children exposed to potentially harmful ingredients when their developing tissues and organs are sensitive to chemical damage. Environmental Working Group's analysis of more than 1,700 children's products shows:

* Every week three-quarters of all children are exposed to allergens, neurotoxins, and hormone-disrupting chemicals in their body care products, in addition to the dozens of chemicals not assessed for safety at all.

* Many children's products contain harsh, industrial chemicals at odds with marketing claims on product labels. We found products marked as gentle, mild, natural, or unscented routinely contain fragrance, synthetic and hazardous ingredients, and chemicals that can cause allergic reactions or irritate the eyes and skin.

* On any given day children are exposed to an average of 27 ingredients not found safe for kids by FDA, the industry safety panel, or any other public authority.

Personal care product safety in the U.S. falls under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration, but the FDA has no power to require that cosmetics be tested for safety before they are sold. Instead, an industry-funded panel (the Cosmetic Ingredient Review, or CIR), not a government health agency, reviews the safety of cosmetic ingredients in the U.S. They have yet to review the safety of 77% of ingredients in children's products on the market today. The vast majority of ingredients have not been assessed for safety by the CIR, the FDA, or any other publicly accountable body.

"This complete absence of accountability to a responsible government agency has not served the American public well. Instead, it has created a culture of ignorance around personal care products, where far too little is known about ingredient safety, while the industry and the FDA steadfastly maintain that all products and their ingredients are safe." --Jane Houlihan, Vice President of Research at the Environmental Working Group, testifying May 2008 before Congress, on Cosmetics Safety

Making Informed Decisions on Your Personal Health Care Products

Harmony Wellness Products uses the safety guide to cosmetics and personal care products developed by researchers at the Environmental Working Group, drawing on data from more than 50 definitive toxicity and regulatory databases. EWG's research is designed for educational purposes only and does not sell or endorse any brands or products. Product ratings are brand-blind, based on a hazard classification scoring system that applies product by product, and are subject to change as scientific data develops and becomes public.

Harmony Wellness Products' Personal Health Care listings provide EWG's four significant product indicators: a Hazard Concern Rating, a Data Gap Rating, whether the manufacturer is a signer of the Compact for Safe Cosmetics and whether it is known if the manufacturer Conducts Animal Testing. The Hazard Concern Rating and Data Gap Rating taken together allows you to see both what is known about the safety of an ingredient, and how complete the available science is behind that safety score. Do these give you a definitive safety assessment? No. But they do give a basis for comparative shopping with the most up-to-date information available. Harmony Wellness Products only offers those products with the lowest Hazard Concern Rating and further pre-shops each item for the best unit price.

SEE: Harmony Wellness Products' Personal Health Care >