More and more people are turning to skin care homemade recipes to avoid the hidden dangers in synthetic-based commercial moisturizers, acne treatments, and face masks.
Every year Americans buy nearly 50 billion dollars worth of cosmetic products. The cosmetic and skin care industry is definitely a huge market. It includes the soaps and gels we use every day, acne treatments, anti-aging skin products, deodorants, moisturizers.
From the look of things, there's no end in sight when it comes to the market growth of this industry. Thousands of new treatments are created, tested, and brought to market each and every year.
But a look at the following statistics helps to understand the potential dangers in these products:
The U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has a list that contains some 10,000 cosmetic and skin care ingredients but more than a whopping 90 percent of them have never been tested for safety - not by the FDA nor by any other publically accountable institution.
The European Union has already banned more than 1,000 ingredients used in personal and skin care products - but the FDA has only banned 10! Just one hundredth of the ingredients Europe has found to be risky.
And the European organization is just starting. It's still looking for more potentially dangerous, damaging, and downright deadly ingredients. If an ingredient is even suspected of causing cancer, birth defects, or other health problems, officials overseas challenge the ingredients' safety.
So how can toxic ingredients used in synthetic based cosmetics damage our health? Because the skin acts like a sponge, soaking up everything it comes in contact with. If you put cosmetics on your skin that have less than healthy -- even toxic -- ingredients, the potentially toxic items soak directly into your skin and into your system.
Parabens
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimates that this class of chemical is the most widely used family of preservatives in cosmetics today.
Parabens are found in some 13,200 skin care ingredients! If you read the labels on shampoos, makeup, hair care products, moisturizers, and even shaving products, you'll find parabens. They may have prefixes before this word, especially methyl, propyl, butyl and ethyl, but they are all types of parabens.
Just how dangerous can this chemical preservative be? Parabens are linked to a greater risk of breast cancer in women. These substances soak into the skin, linger in the body, and apparently set into the breast tissue, according to the Women's Community Cancer Project of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Once they're in your system, parabens begin what's called "estrogenic activity." This means they mimic the hormone estrogen. And estrogen is believed to stimulate breast cancer activity. In a nutshell, parabens actually fool your body into thinking there's more estrogen present than there really is. In the process, it raises your risk of breast cancer.
And this is only one ingredient in synthetic based cosmetic products.
Kay Raymer provides information, recipes and resources for at-home natural skin care. For homemade natural recipes for common skin problems, go to http://www.naturalskincareanswers.com/recipe-for-face-mask.html.
To receive her free email mini-course "10 Secrets to Creating Natural Skin Care Products" visit her website http://naturalskincareanswers.com.
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