Confession: Sometimes I sort of miss phthalates.

Ugh, OK, I don’t really mean that. But you know that feeling when you smell something so amazing—a flower, a candle, your boyfriend’s deodorant—and then all you want to do is smell that thing all the time? Well, phthalates can help with that. They can also help bend your gender, though, so we avoid products that contain them—which means almost anything with synthetic fragrance.

As such, I’ve been on the hunt for a perfume I could love as much as my old favorites. A signature scent, if you will. My criteria has obviously changed over the years: I don’t want a perfume to last all day—I find that weird; but I’d like it to be portable so that I can reapply it before I go out at night; I’d also like it to be 100% organic, or as close to that as possible; and I want it to elicit as many or more “You smell greats” as my Chanel and Hanae Mori used to.

Tough! But not impossible.

In the last three years, I have tried many, and loved few. Alexandra and I have both experimented with using essential oil treatments as perfume. She loves Hope Gillerman’s, and we both still adore Tata Harper’s Irritability Treatment; I love Honore des Pres for its luxurious and playful packaging and nuanced scents (Vamp à NY and Love Coconut are my favorites). There have been others. And now…there’s a new favorite in town.

Lotus Wei has started making perfume! And at $45, it’s affordable! And portable! And organic! And…transformative? Ben oui!

Like all Lotus Wei’s products, these perfumes contain aromatherapy and flower essences, meaning they’re double-teaming you for best results. I have already professed my love for the Infinite Love Energy Mist, and I dose my friends with the Elixirs all the time. Now, thanks to the unbelievably delicious smelling perfume, I can wear it all day long, too.

So Infinite Love is the one I’ve been wearing. It has rose, and mandarin and honey, starting out as a mix of really bright—not heavy or musty—rose with citrus, and it quickly warms into a sexy, caramelly smell as it blends with my own skin. It’s garnered a lot of questions, comments and, yup, compliments, and because it’s got the flower essences in there, I feel like it’s working on a subtler level as well. Mmmmm!

So let’s toss this topic back to you guys. Have you found YOUR signature scent?

(And guys, get excited, because we’ve started calling in some aftershave and colognes as well. Expect some reviews from our boy testers soon!)

The night before I left my parents’ house over the holidays, I came across my old stack of British Vogues from the 90s. Delighted, I flopped on the bed, chatted with my sister, and flipped absentmindedly, narrating as I went (“oh my g-d look at that jumper!”). And then there it was: an article about natural ingredients in beauty products, and how to source them sustainably (and locally).

Huh. So natural beauty was this on the radar in 1997? And so was the local movement? The article even mentions Jurlique, a brand that we covered often in the book (not knowing they’d been around so long).

My brain went from 0 to 100, from wow-that’s-so-cool-what-a-coincidence to why-the-hell-was-this-in-Vogue-back-then-and-not-now? Finally, if this was part of the dialogue in 97′ why isn’t fully mainstream today? Waaaaa.

We know, we know, stuff takes a long time. But natural beauty is just so awesome! While we can’t single-handedly take down the industry (and all of its propaganda) with one book and a blog, we can—each and everyone of us—help spread the word, one person at a time. Which a lot of you do (and we’re grateful). So I thought, let’s post a little primer on how to deal with naysayers, why not. Because if this isn’t as big as organic food by, oh let’s say 2027, we’re going to be seriously bummed.

What rebuttals do you hear most often from people? How do you respond? Here are some of our most common gentle confrontations…

• I don’t have time/it’s too overwhelming to figure out.

Most people assume that they have to go through all of their products and check which ones are OK, and which ones aren’t. But chances are none of them are. It’s so much less intimidating to seek out a few good lines, and a few trusted retailers, and stick with those instead of engaging in a drawn-out process of elimination.

To these people we say: “Just start by finding a few things you like to replace the products you care the least about and go from there.”

• Oh, but I use Khiel’s [or insert other greenwashed brand].

Honestly, if we had a dollar for every time we heard this… But it’s a great opportunity to explain to someone just how insidious greenwashing/false branding can be.

To these people we say: “Yeah it’s crazy, because language on products isn’t even regulated companies can get away with making all kinds of false claims, including ones about the product’s effectiveness.”

• There are more pressing issues, like what’s in food, water, and  the environment.

It’s true, we live in a really polluted world and are exposed to all kinds of chemicals through other routes everyday. But that’s kind of the point.

To these people we say: “Exactly, and this is one of the few routes of exposure that we actually have control over. Why should we knowingly add to our chemical body burden when we don’t have to, and especially with products that are often ineffective?’”

• Is my lipstick really going to hurt me? It’s such tiny amounts.

This argument is a favorite of the pro-chem science community, often referred to as “the dose makes the poison.” It can be very convincing, especially when you’re talking to a toxicologist from inside the industry who has access to information that you don’t (picture us being patronized by these folks when writing the book). And yet, it doesn’t hold water, and there’s a whole other community of scientists that will tell you this: Neurotoxins like lead (which is actually in most lipsticks), and hormone disruptors like phthalates are shown to cause serious detriment even in the tiniest amounts. Ken Cook of the EWG does this great thing when he lectures on the subject, where he compares the often minuscule doses found in some of our most common medications, including the pill and anti-depressants. It’s very effective.

To these people we say: Well, what we just said. It’s kind of a longer discussion.

• Naturals don’t work.

This statement couldn’t be further from the truth, as many a clean beauty convert knows.

To these people we say: “Natural products are often more effective because they use higher levels of active ingredients. Mainstream companies load their products with ineffective fillers in order to cut costs.”

OK, your turn. What do you say to natural beauty naysayers?

Image of the Vogue taken on my iPhone

It’s proseco-for-breakfast time!

Let’s all celebrate this big change: Eastman Chemical has announced that it will stop producing two phthalates—diethyl phthalate and dibutyl phthalate—both of which we have been whining about for some time. We were alerted to the great news by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and the Green Beauty Team. Of course, it’s not the same as a ban, and it doesn’t mean our work here is done, but it’s nice to see business responding to consumer and public health concerns about ingredients. (Though you must wonder what they’ll be replaced with in formulations.)

But for now: Clink! Clink!

Hilarious weird picture via

This one’s already gotten a lot of air time, but we’re going to weigh in nonetheless. A study conducted by the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and published in Environmental Health Perspectives, found a multitude of chemicals in the urine and blood samples of pregnant women.

While this in itself is not surprising, some of the findings are. From this San Francisco Chronicle article:

Of the 163 chemicals studied, 43 of them were found in virtually all 268 pregnant women in the study. They included polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, a prohibited chemical linked to cancer and other health problems; organochlorine pesticides; polybrominated diphenyl ethers, banned compounds used as flame retardants; and phthalates, which are shown to cause hormone disruption.

Some of these chemicals were banned before many of the women were even born.

Nobody knows for sure if these chemicals have ill effects on fetuses and, as Andrew Revkin at the New York Times points out, there are inherent problems when writing about this kind of research. As a rule we try not to incite panic, but we also think that it’s important to spread this type of information even when studies aren’t conclusive (which they never are), or only explore one part of an issue (which they often do). There are also worse things to panic about, especially when our exposure to certain questionable chemicals—like the ones in your body lotion—can be significantly reduced by making better choices as consumers. But I digress…

What’s most disturbing about this study is how some of these chemicals have been passed on mother-to-child generations after they’ve been discontinued from use. That’s creepy, even if it isn’t “proven” to be dangerous.

Are you freaked out by this research? And do you think journalists need to be more careful when they’re reporting on science?

Image via

Two weeks ago, upon landing at LAX with a couple of friends, I got a text message from Alexandra warning me about something of critical importance to people like us.

The hotel we’d be staying at, the text message read, was scent branded. Her sister had already checked in and the word was out: It totally reeked in the lobby, but not to worry—the rooms weren’t scented.

How bad could it be? I thought. Turns out, really, really bad. The lobby, the hallways on every floor and even the bath products (which I would never use anyway, unless… well, we’ll get to that). The fragrance is probably best described as spicy, toxic coconut. And it was intense—even to people less fussy about such things.

(If you don’t know what scent branding is, you should read this old post. And if you don’t know why we care about such things, you should read this old post about how toxic perfume can be.)

On our second day there, we were chatting up the concierge and I asked him if he liked it. He looked a little sheepish and said “People either love it or hate it,” and left it at that. It got me thinking about two things. First, how lucky I am to work in a field where inhaling chemicals all day is not an occupational hazard. Second, how powerful scent is in affecting, informing and remembering different experiences.

Example: Yesterday someone popped by my office at work smelling terrific. She was wearing a Chanel perfume I used to spritz myself with daily—it’s one of these classic fragrances that’s a little different on everyone, but always smells fantastic. I was struck by how much I liked it, because in my quest to clean out all my products, and forgo perfume altogether, I tend to react pretty badly to synthetic fragrances of all kinds. Like the toxic coconut at that hotel, for example, or the too-close-to-me dude on the train who bathes in Axe.

Smell, we’re told, is our most powerful sense for memory triggers, which is probably why my coworker smelled so good to me, and why it made me really like having her in my office (well that and her lovely disposition, obvs). Because I wore that perfume when I was falling in love years ago, and it reminds me of a really happy time. There are a few smells I still love: Old Spice deodorant on dudes; Tide; my mom’s Hanae Mori perfume, which Alexandra and I also used to wear; J+J baby lotion. What do they all have in common? Very fond memories!

So back to the hotel. On day three I was no longer sharing a room with my friend Anna, who, unlike me, didn’t forget her shampoo and conditioner at home. Day one I used her stash. Day two I didn’t wash my hair. And day three I was out of luck. Needing a wash for a big event that night—oh you know, just ALEXANDRA’S WEDDING—I was left with no choice but to use the hotel’s “signature” stash. Holy crap was that a bad idea. I spent all day complaining about how terrible it smelled; I got a headache; I tried to spray my hair with other things to mask the smell, to no avail. Alexandra’s sister even offered me her shower and her stuff and I declined, against my better judgment. The result? I was really, really mad at the hotel!

But here’s the thing. I loved that hotel. The rooms were massive, the staff was charming and attractive, the outside couch area was an urban oasis and the brussell sprouts at the restaurant were bananas. When I think about being there, I think about happy times. And yet I am fairly certain that if I had to smell that coconut concoction again, it would completely—and negatively—affect my memory of the place.

So we want to know—if you’re already all cleaned up with your cosmetics or even if you aren’t: What synthetic smells do you still love? And are they attached to fond memories?

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.

Image via

Happy Friday! I was just cruising along the always enjoyable thatsfit.com when I came across a banner ad for Johnson’s new “natural” line for babies. Have any of you seen this?

It appears that Johnson’s has added three maybe-clean products to its baby line. Ingredients not found in these products include: parabens, dyes, silicones, lanolin, paraffin, petrolatum, phthalates or essential oils. Um, this is a big deal!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not running out to buy all my friends with babies this stuff—at this point cynicism is my knee-jerk reaction to any big company going green. But to see the baby brand of baby brands make this move—and offer full ingredient disclosure on its site—is huge. Maybe they’re just sick of getting sued, but I still see it as a victory for team natural, and proof that consumer awareness will change the market. Don’t ya think?

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Well, probably not all on their own—generally weight is influenced by a variety of factors including diet, exercise, sleep and genetics. But a new study has linked the ever-controversial BPA (found in cans, among other things), along with certain phthalates commonly used in your beauty products, to obesity. From Environmental Health News:

Researchers identified two common environmental chemicals – bisphenol A and benzyl butyl phthalate – that can modulate the signals controlling the number of fat cells produced and the uptake and storage of fats in those cells.

Cute right? Especially since these hormone disruptors are already tied to a host of other terrible things. Canada is looking to ban BPA, and Europe has already eliminated the phthalates in question from their beauty products. So what gives America? Would you support a ban?

Super cool can image via National Geographic

For months now I can’t stop thinking about Tupperware. Not the actual brand, but the weird variety of plastic food containers I’ve collected over the years, some probably just left at my house, others maybe bought at the dollar store.

As the discussion around BPA and pthalates has heated up, so too has my own concern over these plastic containers. Our friends over at the Daily Green were onto this a while ago and posted about which plastic containers are safe, and which may not be. But I’m going to summon the mantra Siobhan and I have held to since we first starting reading about chemicals in beauty products: Why bother? As in, why bother if you can’t be sure something is safe?

Especially when there are such attractive alternatives. Last week, an unhappy trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond to replace a broken coffee grinder—I don’t recommend going to such stores uncaffeinated—turned into a happy discovery. For 20 bucks I got this lovely stainless steel canister set which I’ve been using for just about everything since, including my coffee beans and favorite beet soup.

But if steel isn’t for you, this ceramic set (also pictured above) may be. Nothing wrong with the more traditional  glass set from Pyrex either. All of these feel like pretty reasonable investments to help guarantee things like normal genitals in your unborn son—wouldn’t you agree?

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The latest post from our Good series is live and this one’s about fragrance. We felt it was time to set the story straight on this creepy ingredient, not least of all because it’s used in just about everything…

If you’re the sensitive type—the always sneezing, quick-to-get-a-rash-from-a-new-detergent guy or gal—someone has probably already told you to avoid fragrance. Ditto if you’ve ever been pregnant. In fact, it’s come up as a major no-no in every post we’ve done in this series. But how much do you really know about fragrance? Chances are, not a whole lot. Like most things in the self-regulated personal care business, it’s shrouded in mystery—but this is an especially thick and stinky smokescreen…

Keep reading.

Illustration by Brianna Harden