Skin Deep

With lots of last-minute projects flying my way at work the last couple weeks, I've half-written about a dozen posts in my head... but haven't quite gotten as far as getting them written down here. Hopefully I'll be back on track this week!

Menu Idea Mondays are temporarily suspended; my isolation diet has kicked in, and I'll be lucky if I make so much as a batch of muffins between now and Christmas, so there won't be much new to post on that front! (Look for it to return in January.)

For today, though, I have a great resource to share with you: Skin Deep.

Skin Deep is a cosmetics database hosted by the Environmental Working Group, and it has just been completely overhauled and refreshed to carry the latest data and be easier than ever to navigate.

Why check out Skin Deep?

• Many cosmetics are loaded with questionable (or downright nasty) ingredients that can cause allergic reactions, lead to toxic buildup in your body, and increase your risk of cancer. 
• When standing in a store isle or shopping online, surrounded by options (and often limited information) it can be really hard to sift through it all. 
• We are responsible for our health - who wants to sabotage it by laying your body with toxins every day when you don't have to?
• Companies respond to $$$. The number one most effective way to improve the quality and safety of the products we buy is to vote with our dollars! Spend your money with companies making safe, high-quality products and more companies will (begrudgingly) start making their products conform.

Skin Deep is very user-friendly; you can see at a glance an overall assessment of a product's safety, or zero in on factors that are important to you (like allergens).

If you're gifting (or asking for) any kind of cosmetics or personal care products (shampoo, body wash, styling products) this holiday season, I encourage you to check out this database first!

I won't rant here about how the FDA and other government tentacles don't actually protect us or about how much junk they cheerfully let us poison ourselves with; instead I'll just say that there is tremendous power in being an informed consumer. Skin Deep makes it easy to exercise that power wisely - so hop over, check them out, and pass the word along.

[Note: I am in no way being compensated for this post, and there are no charges or registrations necessary to use Skin Deep. It's just a resource I appreciate and want to highlight so that others can benefit from it as well.]