There was an interesting article this morning on MSNBC about how some women just don’t care about formaldehyde if they can get frizz-free hair. From the piece:

“Chemicals are a way of life now,” says Stefeny Anderson, a 36-year-old event planner from Renton, Wash., who got her first Brazilian Blowout two weeks ago in an effort to tame “corkscrew curls” that frizz at the slightest hint of rain (a given in Washington state). “It’s not like you’re putting it in your hair every day.”

One thing we’ve tried to make abundantly clear is that if you know what’s in your products, and you want to go ahead and use them anyways because you like the cosmetic result, we think that’s fine. What is tricky about the Brazilian blowout, though, is that even if somene is cool with some formaldehyde, the workers are the ones being exposed to those fumes on a daily basis—to say nothing of the other clients in the salon at the time, who didn’t sign up for the BB.

Now if Brazilian blowouts were always done in glass boxes, like the weird smoking room at the airport, and everyone who walked in knew what they were signing up for—well, hey, that would be a different story.

What’s your take?

It’s guest post day! While we’re featuring Virginia’s insights below, over on Nadine Jolie’s site I’m talking about my new favorite old subject, the Brazilian blowout. Here’s a preview:

Thanks to the wonderful coverage on this site and elsewhere, the formaldehyde-laced Brazilian blowout is finally getting the public spanking it deserves. It’s hard to imagine that it was only two years ago now that my best friend Siobhan and I went in for this treatment—giddy with girly excitement, we were clueless as to what we were actually doing, let alone how it would change our futures.

At the time the Brazilian blowout was a hot new item on our favorite salon’s menu, and the stylists there sold us on its virtues. They promised it was a healthy “keratin” treatment that would strengthen our hair, coating it in powerful protein. And so, willing guinea pigs that we were, we made appointments.

Keep reading on Nadine’s site.

Lovely straight hair pic via

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.)

Image via

That’s right, this week over at GOOD we’re talking about your face—and what you don’t want near it. For those of you who have read the book, this top-10 list of bad chemicals will likely be familiar. Hey, nothing wrong with a little refresher, right? Here’s the repost:

A quick skim of this list reads like a prescription from Dr. Obvious. Clearly nobody wants lead or petroleum on their faces, right? But if you’ve been reading this series, our blog, or our book, you know that the cosmetics industry uses all kinds of ingredients in its products—some dangerous, some just plain confusing. What many of them have in common is that that don’t belong anywhere near our largest organ.

Here’s why: Many of them have pretty damning scientific data on record. They’re also not doing anything for your appearance—and in some cases they may be making matters worse. And thus, here is our mantra: If you can’t be sure a product is safe, and it isn’t doing your looks any favors, why bother using it? With that in mind, here’s a top-10 list of common ingredients, contaminants, and byproducts that are bad for your health and duds for your face.

	1. Petroleum and related petrochemicals The danger risk for this group of ingredients ranges from a mellow yellow to code red. Petroleum distillates are toxic solvents used in mascara, hairspray, and callus treatments. But your run-of-the-mill moisturizer probably contains something like mineral oil or paraffin in it, which are not considered dangerous per se, they’re just really, really bad for the environment and they suffocate the skin and may interfere with perspiration.
	2. Lead-tainted lipstick In 2009 the FDA discovered that of 20 lipsticks it tested, 20 were contaminated with lead. In many cases, the lead levels exceeded those set by that same FDA for candy—and since they don’t set restrictions for cosmetics, this feels like a fair model of comparison, right? Not so according to the FDA, which claims that we don’t eat our lipstick. Lead is a neurotoxin and lipstick goes on our mouths, which combine to make this debate officially ridiculous. Go for organic small-batch lipstick lines, or kiss a beet instead.
	3. Formaldehyde-leaching preservatives Our crusade for clean cosmetics started after the discovery of formaldehyde in a hair treatment (and later in our nail polish), but this known carcinogen is also “donated,” as the pros like to say, by preservatives such as quaternium-15, DMDM-hydantoin, imidazolidinyl urea, and diazolidinyl urea. That means it’s both pervasive and often unlisted, not appearing as an ingredient on labels. It’s considered a human carcinogen by many health agencies worldwide, and when it’s not giving rats nose cancer, it might still be giving you a rash.
	4. Fragrance It’s broken-record time, but here goes: Fragrance is in everything from your fancy perfume to your face wash. It represents a concoction of mystery ingredients, whose secrecy is protected by industry-ass-kissing trade laws. Lab studies by the EWG have shown them to contain a whole cocktail of hormone disruptors(among other things). Which is nice, since our hormones regulate, oh, everything: genital size, fertility, weight, acne, and beyond.
See the next five Images by Brianna Harden	5. Parabens This popular preservative group used in more than 10,000 products became very controversial when their presence was discovered in the tissue of breast tumors. What that data actually means is hotly debated but studies have shown that certain parabens mimic estrogen, the female sex hormone. This could be bad news for both men and women. Look for ingredients on the label with “paraben” as a suffix to avoid these bad boys.

I was pleased to come across this post on Treehugger about American Apparel’s line of cleaner nail polishes. (And yeah, it’s no secret that I used to work for the company—where I made many dear friends and which makes my new favorite pants—but that’s not what this post is about.)

Are they totally chemical free? No—unfortunately no polishes are—but at least these don’t contain the big three: DBP, toluene and formaldehyde. Like all things American Apparel the nail polish is also made in America, which means a smaller carbon footprint. Another added bonus? The 20 fun colors it comes in.

Image via

Johnson & Johnson is not making any new friends in the schoolyard this year. Back in February, a federal judge in Newark ruled in favor of letting a class action suit against the company proceed (presumably it’s ongoing, unless it was quietly settled…). The plaintiffs were alleging that J&J’s baby shampoo contained methyl chloride—one of the eight ingredients the FDA has actually banned for use in personal care products. (The EU, mind you, has nixed over 1,000.) In the past their baby shampoo was also found to contain formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane, but these known carcinogens are still technically legal for use.

Now the company is in hot water again. In May, they announced a voluntary recall of liquid pediatric Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl, and Zyrtec, prompting a congressional investigation. According to the FDA, these children’s products may have contained one or some of the following: metal particles, too much of a particular active ingredient, or non-active ingredients that didn’t meet testing standards. Nice, right? Now the New York Times is reporting that Johnson & Johnson is being very uncooperative with the investigation. According to Representative Edolphus Towns, a Democrat from New York, the company had “used delaying tactics in its dealings with the committee and in some instances had provided misinformation.” That’s fancy for lying. According to Towns, J&J told members of their staff they were recalling six million bottles, but had informed the FDA that they were recalling 136 million bottles. There’s more, though! You can read all the juicy details in the article… Fingers crossed that this story actually stays in the news.

Image via The Onion