Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry

by Stacy Malkan

Overview

Lead in lipstick? 1,4 dioxane in baby soap? Coal tar in shampoo? How is this possible? Simple. The $35 billion cosmetics industry is so powerful they’ve kept themselves unregulated for decades. Not Just a Pretty Face chronicles the quest that led a group of health and environmental activists to the world’s largest cosmetics companies to ask some tough questions:

• Why do companies market themselves as pink ribbon leaders in the fight against breast cancer, yet use hormone-disrupting and carcinogenic chemicals that may contribute to that very disease?
• Why do products used by men and women of childbearing age contain chemicals linked to birth defects and infertility?

As doors slammed in their faces and the beauty myth peeled away, the industry’s toxic secrets began to emerge. This scathing investigation peels away less-than-lovely layers to expose an industry in dire need of an extreme makeover. The good news is that while the major multinational companies fight for their right to use hazardous chemicals, entrepreneurs are developing safer non-toxic technologies and building businesses on the values of health, justice and personal empowerment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780865715745
Publisher:	New Society Publishers
Publication date:	10/01/2007
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Stacy Malkan is communications director of Health Care Without Harm, and a media strategist and cofounding member of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a national coalition working to eliminate hazardous chemicals from personal care products. Stacy is a former journalist and newspaper publisher, and a longtime environmental health advocate who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     ix
Prologue     xi
Indecent Exposure     1
Not Too Pretty     15
Because We're Worth It!     35
Skin Deeper     51
Beauty Myth Busters     65
Pinkwashing     75
Because We're Worth It Too!     87
Tricks of the Trade     99
Unmasked     107
A Healthier Foundation     119
The Face of the Future     133
Extreme Makeover     143
Epilogue     151
Notes     155
Index     171
About the Author     177

Editorial Reviews

The author of this book does not paint a pretty picture of the almost totally unregulated cosmetics industry's use of dangerous chemicals. As a cofounder of Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, Malkan uses her journalistic skills to expose the dangers of make-up, baby shampoo, deodorant, and other hundreds of "beauty" products we all use. How does she know that these chemicals are affecting us? By the statistical analysis of blood studies of babies and women, which often show dangerously high levels of chemicals like phthalates that can cause birth defects, cancer, and other diseases. Two of the biggest offenders are nail polish and lipstick. Malkan discusses the irony of cosmetics companies that sponsor campaigns against breast cancer using chemicals that may actually cause breast cancer, or their generous offers of beauty makeovers for cancer patients that may expose them to the same chemicals that may have led them to become ill in the first place. Much of the book urges action on the part of consumers and tells what people are doing to fight the use of chemicals in beauty products, including teenage girls who have organized the Teen Safe Cosmetics Campaign. Malkan includes a chapter on what we can all do to eliminate some of the dangers, even while we campaign our lawmakers to fight the $35-billion-dollar cosmetics industry. The book features extensive notes along with many b/w photographs and charts. Reviewer: Nola Theiss

KLIATT - Nola Theiss