For those new to the site, one of our kind-of claims to fame is for being early to sound the alarm, if you will, on the dangers of the Brazilian Blowout. Our book opens with a scene of us sitting in a fancy West Hollywood salon, choking on the formaldehyde fumes of this now infamous hair treatment. It marked the beginning of our journey into clean beauty—without the BB, there would be no book and no site.

Behind closed doors, we were later told that the negative attention brought upon the blowout, by us and other clean-beauty and public health advocates, helped serve as a catalyst for the lawsuit thrown down by California’s Attorney General back in November 2010. California has this nifty law called Prop 65 that stipulates products that contain carcinogens must feature a warning label on it. And now it’s been enforced for the first time.

Because not only was Brazilian Blowout not warning consumers and salon workers about the high levels of formaldehyde—as much as 10% according to some lab tests—in their treatment, they were also claiming some versions of the product were formaldehyde free. We’ve covered the story extensively and posted the original filing here. A few days ago the saga reached its conclusion. For now.

In a settlement, GIB, LLC, the company that makes Brazilian Blowout, must stop its deceptive advertising and pay $600,000 in fees, penalties and costs. Remember, though, as Virginia at Beauty Schooled points out: This applies to one brand and one brand only for now. There are countless other companies also making similar Brazilian blowout (lower-case b) formulas, and this doesn’t yank the procedure or the products from salons, either. It just slaps it with a CAUTION label.

Is it enough? No, but it’s something.
For those interested we’ve listed the settlement requirements below.

Requirements as listed by a Department of Justice press release:

- Produce a complete and accurate safety information sheet on the two products that includes a Proposition 65 cancer warning; distribute this information to recent product purchasers who may still have product on hand; and distribute it with all future product shipments. The revised safety information sheet — known as a “Material Safety Data Sheet,” or MSDS — will be posted on the company’s web site.

- Affix “CAUTION” stickers to the bottles of the two products to inform stylists of the emission of formaldehyde gas and the need for precautionary measures, including adequate ventilation.

- Cease deceptive advertising of the products as formaldehyde-free and safe; engage in substantial corrective advertising, including honest communications to sales staff regarding product risks; and change numerous aspects of Brazilian Blowout’s web site content.

- Retest the two products for total smog-forming chemicals (volatile organic compounds) at two Department of Justice-approved laboratories, and work with DOJ and the Air Resources Board to ensure that those products comply with state air quality regulations.

- Report the presence of formaldehyde in its products to the Safe Cosmetics Program at the Department of Public Health.

- Disclose refund policies to consumers before the products are purchased.

- Require proof of professional licensing before selling “salon use only” products to stylists.

To this day we still get letters and comments on old posts about women who have lost their hair, damaged their scalps or suffered in some way from the Brazilian blowout. Have you done it? Please continue to share your experiences. This this is far from over.

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If this news is any indication, salons may soon require hazmat suits for its workers… That’s hyperbole, of course, but:

The Department of Labor has issued an official immediate safety warning about formaldehyde-containing hair-smoothing products like the Brazilian Blowout. This is big news—HUGE*—and speaks to how much things really are (slowly) changing when it comes to the wild west of chemicals used in cosmetics and cosmetic procedures.

Federal OSHA is recommending that salons that carry out the procedure follow the following guidelines:

• Give workers respirators
• Give employees appropriate gloves and other personal protective equipment (e.g., face shield, chemical splash goggles, chemical-resistant aprons)
• Post signs at entryways to any area where formaldehyde is above OSHA’s limit**
• Tell workers about the health effects of formaldehyde

Writing:

Recent reports from Oregon OSHA, California OSHA, and now Federal OSHA should alert salon owners and stylists to look closely at the hair smoothing products they are using to see if they contain methylene glycol, formalin, methylene oxide, paraform, formic aldehyde, methanal, oxomethane, oxymethylene, or CAS Number 50-00-0. All of these are names for or treated as formaldehyde under OSHA’s Formaldehyde standard. Products containing them can expose workers to formaldehyde; employers who manufacture, import, distribute, or use the products must follow OSHA’s formaldehyde standard.

The Environmental Working Group also has a new report out called Flat Out Risky that is loaded with information we haven’t had a chance to sift through yet (we just wanted to get this information out to you!).

Also, note that the hazard warning cites new lab reports in which “formaldehyde-free” products proved to contain formaldehyde after all. So in case you were still wondering about whether or not you should do it, and whether or not that “greener” Brazilian blowout really is, consider this your answer!

*Big kisses to anyone who gets that reference.

** OSHA’s limit is 0.75 parts of formaldehyde per million parts (or ppm) of air during an 8-hour work shift or 2 ppm during any 15-minute period.

Elisha Reverby, a holistic skincare expert in California and the founder of Elique Organics, reached out a little while ago with an idea for a guest post. Never one to pass up an opportunity to share new voices with you—and since all this bath talk has been so illuminating—here are her thoughts about the best way to take a bath. You can check out her blog, here.

Aaaaaah the bath…

Before bathing was appreciated as a means to relaxation, it was used as a beauty ritual complete with milks, flowers and honeys. It was also used as a medicinal therapy to purify and detoxify the body as well as treat skin disorders, joint issues and other illnesses. But e today, the bath is a sacred place that can promote sleep and calm during the most hectic of times. It can restore and revitalize the chi, i.e. energy, during the most lethargic and exhausted of times. A bath can also heal body and soul and help you tap into your sensuality on days when it would be nice to fee like a woman for a change.

Here are some tips on how to make the most of your time in the tub:

The warm bath is the perfect place to have your body, hair and face wrapped in some kind of delicious homemade food and honey mask! The warmth of the bath tempers the skin, allowing it to relax as the pores readily open wide like little mouths just waiting to receive all the yummy nourishment you are offering while also readily excreting and shedding. This is your skin at its best! And listen; don’t just put the mask on. Oh no! The most important thing is to tend to it once by massaging those nutrients deeper while stimulating every single little nerve, muscle and fiber of your body. Work out your jaw and facial muscles, rub the scalp and shoulders and behind the ears. Heck, lift a leg out of the water and rub your feet and legs, too. Then run a little more hot to warm the bath, lie back with lavender pillow over your eye and soak your troubles away…

And remember, bathing uses a lot of water—so  for those of us that are living a conscious lifestyle, we know that water is a resource that is not to be taken for granted. Make sure to keep your bathing to a minimum (once a week at the most) and fill tub just enough to cover your body, not to the top.

SALTS

When I first started receiving acupuncture it was for some back tension and extremely sleepless nights that were riddled with tossing, turning and one worrisome bad dream to another. My acupuncturist also recommended I start smudging my space with sage every week and soaking in epsom salt baths. “Why?” I asked. “Because epsom salts absorb heavy energy and the sage will purify your space…” I never knew this about the salts and so that day, curious and ready for some sweet dreams, I went home and took a long hot epsom salt bath and smudged my entire flat. Not only did I sleep like a baby that night but in the years since I have been given this recipe for eternally blissful sleep, it has become part of my lifestyle and I have even come to know when I need it and it works like a charm every time.

SOAKING

There are some great soaks to get your body in balance. Some I am attached to personally and others are revered for their long history. I love a bath with any of the following ingredients. They soften the skin, exfoliate and cleanse it, are sweetly scented and extremely decadent. Nothing makes my skin scream “GORGEOUS” more than fresh herbs and foods all mashed up with oils, creams and honeys. And then when the bath is over, I like to imagine that when these yummies go down the drain, any life that is in its path is relishing in it too.

• Honey and lots of it from bees that are raised sustainably and ethically. Honey used on my skin makes it toned, firm, hydrated and radiant. When using honey, while thanking the honey bee for all her hard work, I cannot help but feel like a queen. This is my favorite skin food.
• Fresh lemons, limes and oranges are heavenly in the bath. You caneven use the skins of freshly juiced ones and don’t forget to take those suckers and smooth them across the face, neck, décolleté soles of feet.
• Apple cider vinegar alkalizes the skin while refreshing and energizing the entire body. Add as much as 1/2 cup to a bath and be surprised at how much you love it. Braag’s is my favorite brand as it is also probiotic.
• Hydrosols are so luxurious and definitely a treat in the bath. Quality hydrosols are expensive, but once in a while add as little or as much as you desire. Make sure to reserve some and mist the entire body at least twice after bathing. When it is time to moisturize and to feel ultra feminine, massage a European style decadent crème like Elique’s Whipped all over your hydrosol infused skin. Wait 5-10 minutes before dressing and all I can say is va va voom. He wont be able to stay away…
• Ginger, mint, black tea and cayenne work wonders in their ability to gently stimulate the skin and body by encouraging healthy circulation, digestion and excretion. Also the caffeine in the black tea firms and tones the bum.
• Essential oils of grapefruit, cedar, ylang ylang, lavender, geranium and neroli are great in the bath or in food and herb masks.

Other ideas:

• Chickpea flour with dry milk is combined with water in Ayurvedic culture to create a cleansing paste that is thoroughly massaged in the body and left on it while soaking. This is a deep cleansing and skin softening treatment.
• Warm sesame oil works wonders on a dry, sensitive and flaky scalp and brittle hair when left on for 10 minutes in a warm environment like the bath. Finally, lightly wash out preferably with a shampoo sans harsh detergents.
• Bananas, milk, ghee, yogurt and honey are used in Ayurveda to create a traditional “Five Nectars” mask, which is massaged into the body from head to toe and then left on to soak for a good 20 minutes. Yummy!
• Rose, vetiver or sandalwood essential oils added into a cool bath is a wonderful treatment for healing sun and wind burns.
• Ginger with rosemary and sage create a bath to ease sore muscles and detoxify the body. Wrap a sprig of fresh rosemary, 1 cup coarsely chopped ginger and a small bunch of fresh sage in cheesecloth and toss into bath as hot tap is running. Get ready to be tingled silly.
• Valerian, hops, chamomile and Epsom salts will induce rest and tranquility. Great for utter exhaustion where sleep is desperate and anxiety filled. Soak in a bath of these ingredients and for an extra dose of zzzzz’s, with or without a teaspoon of bourbon, sip on an organic steamed herbed milk like chamomile or basil. Sweet dreams.
• Apples blended with fresh lemon and rosemary combined is a great rub for the person with a thicker or heavier skin. With hair up and clothes off slather mask over your body, hair, feet and hands prior to entering tub. Use upward strokes referred to in our dry brushing section. Soak and relish in the skin you’re in.
• Mustard in the bath is a traditional English remedy for tired, stressed muscles. It also draws out impurities, relieves stress, induces sleep and warms your muscles. For an added punch add 1/4 – 1/2 cup per bath with 20 drops of ginger essential oil.

There is so much more I can say but for now just have fun chopping, mashing and soaking in all these goodies.

Happy bathing!

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Happy Monday! Here’s some news from the shame-on-you department: The EPA—the government agency entrusted, at least in theory, with protecting the environment—was warned by its own scientists about an insecticide used to grow corn and other crops, and it didn’t do squat about it. That same pesticide, produced by the German company Bayer, made $262 million in sales to farmers in 2009. Oh also, it’s super-toxic to honeybees.

For the last several years, scientists and environmentalists have been dismayed over what’s happening to the honeybees (short version: they’re dying), scrambling for explanations as to why. Several theories have been presented, and recently, headlines squawked about how a virus was responsible, which set off alarms in my Nancy Drewish brain.

Really? I thought. That’s curious. An environmental catastrophe that can’t be blamed on humans?

Well, according to documents leaked to Grist, the pesticide, which is banned in Germany (the country that makes the stuff), France, Slovenia and Italy, is known to be toxic to bees—on which the entire food chain relies, remember. From the report:

Clothianidin’s major risk concern is to nontarget insects (that is, honey bees). Clothianidin is a neonicotinoid insecticide that is both persistent and systemic. Acute toxicity studies to honey bees show that clothianidin is highly toxic on both a contact and an oral basis.

We’ll be following the story closely. Grist called the EPA last week and an unnamed spokesperson said the hard-to-pronounce pesticide will continue to be used, and will be available for spring crops.

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Turns out it’s not just canned food and bottled water we have to worry about—which we kind of new anyway, but this is no less easier to hear. In addition to customer receipts at chain store, a new study shows that:

“Higher exposure was correlated with exposure to cashier receipts, cigarette smoke and the family of chemicals known as pthalates, which are used in plastics, fragrances and many other common household products.”

BPA, in case you don’t know, is an estrogen-mimicking chemical found in some plastics and can linings, as well as a whole host of other things we come into contact with on a regular basis. It’s virtually impossible not to have some exposure to it, which is why some legistlators—and Canada—is moving to ban the stuff outright.

A few other highlights from the study, according the The Daily Green:

Le. Sigh.

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Oh, hey, look at this: A hair product claiming to be formaldehyde-free isn’t. Which is not surprising to us as all, but is still big news. The Center for Research on Occupational and Environmental Toxicology in Oregon was contacted by a Portland salon when the straightening solution they were using in their salon caused difficulty breathing, nose bleeds and eye irritation in stylists using the product as directed.

Guess what the product was? Brazilian-blowout straightening solution, which was labeled explicitly formaldehyde free.

The Oregon OSHA laboratory analyzed the sample using four different test methods. Formaldehyde was reported to be detected by each method at 10.6%, 6.3%, 10.6% and 10.4% of the product.

Because our Brazilian blowout inspired us to write our book in the first place, we get asked about this a lot. And in the last little while, we keep getting the question-statement: But Brazilian blowouts don’t use formaldehyde anymore!(?) To which we always say: Perhaps not, but they do use biformyl, which is also known as glyoxal and Oxaldehyde, and is a relative of formaldehyde, that isn’t particularly safe and also sometimes also contains the big F.

You can see some toxicological info for that chemical here and here. Note how the second one, under “exposure” it says: “AVOID ALL CONTACT!” (Caps and exclamation mark are, for once, not ours.)

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Hey guess what? The FDA is probably going to approve genetically engineered FISH for sale in the United States. As in, whole live salmons, made out of a “genetic cocktail of genomes taken from other fish.” They say they have been testing the salmon for ten years, and told the Washington Post that: “In characteristics, physiology, behavior, this is an Atlantic salmon. It looks like an Atlantic salmon. It tastes like an Atlantic salmon.”

The catch? The testing has been done in a particularly non-transparent way, which has environmental groups—and lots of chefs—miffed. It seems problematic to us, too, obviously—as does the fact that it’s unclear if the people making frankenfish will be required to label their food as genetically engineered. I’m also curious about the nutritional profile. Will it be loaded with the same Omega-3 goodness of, say, wild Alaskan? And what are the long-term environmental implications?

If approved, it will be the first genetically engineered animal approved for human consumption.

The company is called AquaBounty, and here’s how they describe their little lab creatures:

AquaBounty is developing advanced-hybrid salmon, trout, and tilapia designed to grow faster than traditional fish. AquAdvantage Salmon reach market size twice as fast as traditional salmon … [They are also] reproductively sterile … [and] grow faster and reach mature size earlier than standard salmon.

How much faster? Eighteen months to full size.

OK the mic is yours. Would you eat it? What do you think the larger implications are here?

Image of non-genetically engineered salmon via

We’ve invented a word because Canada is having a great week on toxics regulation. According to Environment Canada, BPA has been added to the agency’s toxic substances list—a big, big deal, especially after the disturbing revelation last week that 90% of the people tested had the hormone disruptor in their urine. (A similar study in the United States found it in 93% of those sampled.)

The American Chemistry Council is predictably miffed, and last year said that classifying it as a toxic is “pander[ing] to emotional zealots.” Well, color us emotional zealots because we are thrilled.

BPA, in case you have been living under a rock, has been linked to obesity, neurological issues, impaired thyroid function and other hormonal issues. Humans are exposed to it from soda cans, canned foods, baby bottles, school lunches, in plastics and more.

This is pretty game-changey. We’re excited to see what happens next, and we hope Environment Canada is ready to duck, because we imagine there’s going to be some mudslinging.

Luca with a BPA-free bottle (and Siobhan)

Grab a bottle, any bottle, and flip er over. On the ingredient list, you are very likely to see cyclopentasiloxane. It’s a sleek, smooth and revolting silicone that makes your hair shine and your foundation go on even and your antiperspirant slip on in a nice thin layer. It’s used in thousands of beauty products, and according to Skin Deep, it rates pretty low on the human-toxics scale. It’s also an evil fish killer, apparently.

Quoting: “Government assessments show [cyclopentasiloxane] could be killing fish and other aquatic life after it washes down the drain and into the water supply.” Nice, right?

And so Canada might be banning it—an effort they’ve had underway for a couple of years already. It’s pretty wild to think about what would happen if Canada succeeded in restricting or banning this stuff. Hopefully, if it happens, the companies that reformulate without cyclopentasiloxane will take it as an opportunity to get smart about ingredients and not just throw in some other chemical we know even less about.

Silicones are on our no-no list, and we hope they’re on yours—if not because they’re gross, then for the fishes.

Cute dead fish by Bellafelice

We have another post up on GOOD and this one is serious business, folks. It’s a slideshow (click the arrow!) that explains the limits of the FDA when it comes to cosmetics regulation. These are the things Alexandra and I like to think about whenever our faith in our project wavers, which doesn’t happen often, but we all have our days.

Not to be preachy but we think this is stuff every consumer needs to know. Read on, tell your friends and let us know what you think in the comments. Boop!

Illustration by Brianna Harden