When two journalists discovered that formaldehyde was the miracle agent behind their sleek hair-dos, they decided to dig a little further into their beauty products' ingredient lists. What they found was terrifying. That lipstick? That mascara? All full of toxic chemicals, as it turns out.
In their book No More Dirty Looks, Siobhan O'Connor and Alexandra Spunt run through those sixteen-letter words that you're likely daub onto your face each morning. They also tell you how to avoid the worst of the worst, while still indulging your vanity.
Earlier this week O'Connor and Spunt spoke to TIME's Wellness blog about their new book, their new shopping habits, and whether it's actually possible to find a natural deodorant that works.
I think for both of us, an early surprise and one that stayed with us was just looking at the laws that govern cosmetics. The products that we buy and trust, we assume that they've been vetted and approved by some kind of publicly accountable health agency, and that's not the case.
The [U.S. Food and Drug Administration's] Office of Cosmetics and Colors really oversees the industry in name only. I think, among consumers, there's an implicit trust there that isn't exactly warranted.
Essentially they require that products list their intended ingredients. (And it's important to distinguish between intended ingredients and unintended ingredients because as products sit on shelves for years and year and years, chemicals react together
