Where Are Your Cosmetics From?

From the time we are adolescents, we are fed a fine marketing campaign that thrusted us into consumerism. Unfortunately, much of it has played on our vanity and the products that we started to buy into were "beauty" products. Without a thought to how these might impact us, we became accustomed to using them along with our peers. It is only in recent years that some consumers have become a bit savvy about scrutinizing their products for safety. And even still, the minutia that we have to sort through is staggering. The developmental years are a critical time to steer the health of the human body. Exposure to toxicants at this time will have an impact upon the incidence of disease in later life...and the progressive increase in the rate of chronic disease is telling this story.

Getting the message across that we have to stand up for ourselves as consumers is a challenging one. It is a leap for many to believe that we are simply not being protected by government regulation that stops the flow of toxic chemicals into the food and products that we use everyday. But the reality is this...we are currently not safe if we choose to trust the manufacturers without a pause. The majority of cosmetics are loaded with synthetic chemicals that are questionably hazardous to the health of our bodies and the environment. A good body of evidence suggests that many disrupt the function of our hormones and produce genetic changes that put us at risk for diseases such as cancer. The conversation about our health and the environment is long overdue in some homes. So where to start?

With a creative educational video. The Story of Stuff Project has been in the works for a few years now with the mission of educating consumers about this very topic. The emerging relationship between the health of our ecosystem and the health of our species is becoming rather clear. As a continued push to help consumers protect themselves, the Story of Stuff Project released a video on the Story of Cosmetics. It is a story we should all hear, including the young members of our population. Start to share this with your family and friends. It is the demand of consumers that bring about change. If we don't buy it, they won't make it. And that would make life easier for all of us!