Organic Switch! campaign supports safe cosmetics drive
A group of communication professionals and graduate students from the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU) is currently holding a social marketing campaign to increase consumers’ awareness on cosmetics that contain toxic chemicals and heavy metals beyond the limits regarded as safe. The campaign also urges consumers to use organic/organic-based daily personal-care products with safe ingredients.
“We want to empower the general public to make informed decisions on choosing safe, green and organic alternative,” says the group of students under the Master of Development Communication program of the UPOU.
Dubbed as Organic Switch!, the campaign has been launched in support of a growing interest by individuals, organizations such as EcoWaste Coalition, and the government on the health hazard of unsafe cosmetics. It seeks to provide measurable results that can be used in future research and studies on personal-care products with safe active ingredients.
According to the campaign’s website: “Government scientists have ‘identified a group of toxic chemicals known as phthalates in urine of adults, with highest levels in premenopausal women, resulting from inhalation and skin exposure to volatile parent ingredients used extensively as solvents and plasticizers in personal-care and cosmetic (PCC) products,’ according to Dr. Samuel Epstein as quoted in Senate Bill No. 1886 (An Act Establishing the Safe Cosmetics Act).”
Epstein explained that phthalates “induce birth defects, low sperm counts and other reproductive toxicity in experimental animals.”
For more information, visit organicswitch.wordpress.com. Like the Organic Switch! campaignon Facebook at www.facebook.com/OrganicSwitch208 and follow on Twitter @OrganicSwitch.
Join the Organic Switch! online survey and contests and get a chance to win safe and organic/organic-based products from ECHOstore, Human Nature, Lawiswis, Messy Bessy and The Body Shop.
Organic Switch!
Switch to Green. Switch to Clean
Everybody uses daily personal-care products, but not all are aware of the benefits of its organic or organic-based ingredients. Moreover, there is a dearth in information on the health hazards of many cosmetics on the market, which contain levels of toxic chemicals and heavy metals beyond the limits regarded as safe.
Cosmetics as defined by the Consumer Act of the Philippines and the US Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act are, “(1) articles intended to be rubbed, poured, sprinkled, or sprayed on, introduced into, or otherwise applied to the human body… for cleansing, beautifying, promoting attractiveness, or altering the appearance, and (2) article except that such term shall not include soap.” “Among the products included in this definition are skin moisturizers, perfume, lipsticks, fingernail polishes, eye and facial makeup preparations, shampoos, permanent waves, hair colors, toothpastes, and deodorants, as well as any material intended for use as a component of a cosmetic product” (US Food and Drug Administration, 2002).
Synthetic fragrance, from lotions to deodorants and even “unscented” products, may contain allergens, sensitizers, phthalates, neurotoxins and synthetic musk. Phthalates and synthetic musk disrupt hormones while neurotoxins are universally-known to damage the brain (Hutteret al, 2009).
In 2009, the FDA published an analysis of lead levels in lipstick in the Journal of Cosmetic Science. It found lead, a neurotoxin, in all 20 of the lipsticks tested, four times the highest level reported by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics’ independent study in 2007.
According to the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, nail polish contains dibutyl phthalates, formaldehyde and toluene. Toluene, which helps produce the smooth finish, is a common constituent of petroleum, glue and paint products, and is known to affect the central nervous system.
In 2010, the European Respiratory Review published a study on pulmonary talcosis due to inhalation of cosmetic talc powder.
In the Philippines, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regularly bans imported cosmetic products that are not registered with the agency but are widely sold in the market. The FDA conforms with the ASEAN Cosmetic Directive and the ASEAN Ingredient Listing, which has annexes on List of substances which must not form part of the composition of cosmetic products, List of substances which cosmetic products must not contain except subject to restriction and conditions laid down, List of coloring agents allowed for use in cosmetic products, List of excluded from the scope of the directive, List of preservatives which cosmetic products may contain, and List of UV filters which cosmetic products may contain. FDA’s website has the listing with a complete catalog of all notified or acknowledged cosmetic products available in the country.
Three years before legislators proposed the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2011 in the US, Sen. Miriam Santiago had filed an act establishing the Safe Cosmetics Act in 2008. The bill “seeks to ensure the safety of cosmetic products sold in the Philippines by requiring that such products be free of any ingredients which have been identified as chemicals causing cancer or reproductive toxicity (Senate Bill No. 1886, 2010).”
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