What is in your morning bathroom routine? Most likely, you take a shower with a zesty, invigorating

shower gel; you shampoo and condition your hair; you wash and maybe scrub your face with a
foaming fresh-smelling cleanser; if you are a man, you also shave. You splash your skin with a toner
or an astringent, top it with a moisturizer with (hopefully) some sunscreen in it, followed by makeup
(again, optional), rub some antiperspirant under your arms, and add a spritz of a fragrance to seal the
deal. Within fifteen minutes, you have exposed yourself to a whopping amount of chemicals—and you
haven’t even left home yet!

After a quick count of ingredients contained in a typical cleanser, toner, moisturizer, eye cream,
facial scrub, body wash, body lotion, and sunscreen, I came up with more than two hundred different
chemicals that we diligently apply to our skin daily. This is not counting hundreds of synthetic
fragrance ingredients in your favorite eau de toilette! Soon you will inhale car emissions, pesticides,
radon, volatile organic compounds, persistent organic pollutants, tobacco smoke, dust, and
microscopic droplets of grease. You will eat food that contains artificial preservatives, flavors, and
colors, and you will drink water that has subpar purity standards, adding to the already brewing
cocktail of chemicals that enter your system nonstop.

In 2006, a consumer advocacy group, Environmental Working Group, with the support of the
Breast Cancer Fund, Breast Cancer Action, and the National Environmental Trust, released a study of
the listed ingredients for 7,500 bestselling beauty products. Here are some of the findings:

About 90 percent of cosmetic ingredients have never been analyzed for health impacts by the
Cosmetic Ingredient Review Board, a panel that oversees cosmetic safety. More than seventy popular
hair dye products contain ingredients derived from coal tar, a known carcinogen. Nearly 55 percent
of products contain “penetration enhancers” that increase the ability of chemicals to enter the
bloodstream.

About 90 percent of cosmetic ingredients have never been analyzed for health impacts.

Too Good to Be True?

How many times have you stumbled upon the phrases “our studies show” and “dermatologist
tested”? These marketing clichés are so common, you hardly pay attention. The cosmetic industry, one
of the largest and most profitable of all industries, spends more on advertising than any other trade.
Each advertisement claim should be validated, and there’s a well-established claim validation
business that serves the beauty industry.

A cream delivers 300 percent more moisture? The shampoo makes hair five times shinier? Show
us the proof, officials say. “The Cosmetics Directive does require that when a claim for efficacy is
made for a cosmetic product, full substantiation for the claim should be available,” says the European
Union’s Cosmetics Directive 76/768/EEC. Most often, such claims are validated by consumer testing,
surveys, and clinical studies. Women slather creams on freshly washed, dry faces, and miracles
happen— skin looks moisturized, and wrinkles are less visible. Women wash their greasy, limp locks
with a new fruity shampoo and, what do you know, their hair looks shiny and clean. What a
breakthrough!

Rarely do we learn if the dermatologist involved in the study was on the payroll of the cosmetic
company, or if the study was peer-reviewed, double-blind, or carried out by an independent