There are very few government restrictions on what ingredients can go into your makeup, shampoo, and other beauty products. As a result, some pretty dangerous stuff ends up next to your skin every day. Skin Deep can help – it’s an online safety guide to cosmetics and personal care products.

The site is easy to use – type a product, company, or ingredient into the search field and you’ll get a list of matching entries. The safety rankings are numbered and color-coded. You can click on an entry to see details – don’t forget to scroll down.

There’s a lot of info on this site. Not all of it is fun to read – we’re going to have to reconsider some of our favorite products after seeing them associated with health risks we’re not willing to take for beauty. We’re still a little sad about that. But we know we’ll be happier in the long run.

Skin Deep is a product of the Environmental Working Group, which has an email list. It’s a good way to stay informed about all kinds of environmental toxins.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 5:15 am and is filed under Beauty, Green living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.