Healthy Homes Asia

Watch this great short film about the toxic chemicals in your cosmetics
and personal care products. Want to avoid them?

How many personal care, beauty products or cosmetics do you use on your skin everyday? Two? Five? 10? 20?

Count them: cleanser, eye makeup cleanser, toner, blemish cream, anti-wrinkle cream(s), eye cream, moisturizer(s), whitener, sun-screen, foundation, blush, eyeshadow, eye liner, mascara, lip liner, and lipstick?

Surprised at the number?

The most recent survey showed that Korean women wore on average 12.9 cosmetic products during the day and 6.47 at night.

Internationally recognized US cancer expert Dr Samuel Epstein and investigative reporter Randall Fitzgerald, details the wide range of avoidable health risks, some even life threatening, in his latest book Toxic Beauty.

This fully documented exposé of the US cosmetics industry outlines how Americans are unknowingly exposed to in their everyday cosmetic and personal-care products.

“But there is also good news. These toxic exposures are 100 percent avoidable by taking just a few basic precautions,” says Epstein.

Toxic Beauty is written by Dr. Samuel S. Epstein, an internationally recognized expert on avoidable causes of cancer, besides other toxic-related diseases. Besides chronicling the pervasive marketing of dangerous products, the book  informs readers on the growing availability of safe products.

Epstein warns, “Unbelievably, the US Food and Drug Administration has recklessly failed to protect us from toxic ingredients in cosmetics and personal-care products for the last six decades. What’s more, the mainstream industry has remained criminally indifferent to the dangers of their products. In sharp contrast, European regulations ban all products containing toxic ingredients.”

“We are all playing Russian roulette with toxic-laden cosmetics and personal-care products that we apply to our skin, and to the skin of our infants and children, everyday,” warns Epstein.

The reality is that protecting yourself and your family is entirely up to you. Do you know what chemicals the products you use contain? What are the government/ industry controls and quality assurance systems like where you live in Asia?

Feeling overwhelmed? What it it were as simple as being aware and choosing differently? Here's how.

• Be aware of the potentially harmful ingredients commonly used in soaps, shampoos, moisturizers and other personal care products, including in those labeled ‘gentle for baby’, 'all natural' and 'organic'
  
• Take a list of these ingredients with you when you go shopping to make sure you don’t buy products containing them
  
• Identify companies committed to using only safer, effective ingredients, and use only their products, and
  
• Invite your local shops to add more chemical free food and non-toxic personal care products to their shelves. In some countries you'll need to take a magnifying glass with you to read the labels!

Would that be easy? Give it a go. See what a difference YOU can make.

by Dr Samuel Epstein -  This highly regarded qualified medical expert speaks out about this product hazard, and gives some guidelines for meaningful protective action. This book is a transparent truth of the consumer industry.

Join the Help 15 Project to take a simple, practical step to make a real difference in your community. To help you, start your ‘list of ingredients to avoid’ with:

• talc
• mineral oil
• lanolin
• alcohol
• sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) and
• propoylene glycol.

Enter your email below and we'll send you our free multi-lingual pocket guides of many more ingredients to avoid in food, personal care/ beauty/ household products, so you can make the safest choice for you and your family.

English-simplified Chinese (China)
E-CS listed according to English alphabet
E-CS listed according to Chinese order

English-traditional Chinese (Hong Kong/Taiwan)
E-CT listed according to English alphabet
E-CT listed according to Chinese order

English-Korean
E-K listed according to English alphabet
E-K listed according to Korean order

English-Japanese
E-J listed according to English alphabet
E-J listed according to Japanese order