The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is a coalition of women's, public health, labor, environmental health and consumer-rights organizations that came together in 2004 to try to prevent certain dangerous chemicals from being used in our everyday personal care products, such as perfumes, lotions, cleansers, and makeup. The group sites that the European Union bans 1,100 toxic chemicals from personal care products, including some phthalates used in nail polish and other products. In contrast, the United States bans only 11 chemicals. Some products sold in the U.S. still contain chemicals banned in Europe even though safer alternatives are available.

A campaign partner of the group, the Environmental Working Group, launched Skin Deep in 2004, the world’s largest database of chemicals in personal care products. This innovative online tool matches the ingredients listed on personal care products with 50 toxicity databases to determine safety ratings and data gaps for each product, brand or company. It can be used to help consumers navigate through the sometimes unintelligible ingredient list on most household products.

Due to pressure from the Campaign, in 2006, some major nail polish brands also removed the “toxic trio” of nail polish chemicals – dibutyl phthalate, formaldehyde and toluene – from their nail polish.

More recently, the group is trying to get as many companies as possible to sign the Compact for Safe Cosmetics, a pledge to provide transparency to consumers and to make products free from potentially harmful chemicals.

For more info on the group and to see how you can make a difference, visit http://www.safecosmetics.org/