Every morning, women all over the United States wake up and get ready for the day. They shower, using their shampoo, conditioner, body wash, shaving gel, and possibly more. Then they move to their face, some of the most delicate skin on your body and cover it with cleanser, toner, moisturizer, lotions, scrubs, serums, sunscreen, and primer. Then comes the makeup: mascara, eye shadow, blush, bronzer, eye liner, brow pencil, lip liner, lip gloss, lip stick, the amount of products we can cake on our faces in endless. We use all these products thinking they are helping us. Making us more fresh, young, and beautiful. However, in reality, these products we use to make us look “natural” can contain hundreds of cancer-causing chemicals. So why do manufacturers sell them to us if they are killing us? Because they can; the government lets them. The laws in place to regulate these products are passive. The government is not doing enough to regulate the chemicals used in and during the manufacturing of products people use daily.
For thousands of years women have searched for ways to alter their appearance. Society has lost touch to what real beauty is. We look through magazines and see pictures of “beautiful” women covered head to toe in cosmetics. Models are subject to hours of time getting covered in body makeup, just to look “natural.” In reality, the pictures we see are just as fictitious as paintings. Formaldehyde, lead acetate, toluene, coal tar, parabens, and phthalates are just a few chemicals that can be found in our personal care products.
According to the President’s Cancer Panel report by the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition, “For women the lifetime chance of developing an invasive cancer is one in three, and one in five die from cancer ... More than 1.5 million people were diagnosed with new cases of cancer in 2009”(nrdc.org). If these products are so bad for us why are we they so readily available? The government is not doing enough to stop manufacturers from selling them.
