Lately, there has been a lot of hullaballoo about the use of chemicals in cosmetics.  States like Colorado have been attempting to pass laws which would regulate which ingredients a company can use as an ingredient and those on their unwanted list should have the right to sue that business.  They want laws in place which would make it next to impossible for a small company such as my own to operate efficiently because we'd get our pants sued from under us. 

I used to be a strong supporter of natural and organic products.  That was until I actually researched some of these companies and the products.  Many of the people behind them have little or no background in what they are producing.  Their propaganda is based on telling people how all the other companies have "harmful chemicals" in their products while theirs is squeaky clean and pure.  What happens is pretty much the Chicken Little theory where other companies decide they'll get more customers because everyone is becoming "cautious" (scared).  They then copy whatever information they can from these fear mongering websites which have only half of their information correct with little or no research to prove or disprove their theories.  Natural and organic health magazines whose employees are pro-natural will then print the same misinformation and hype running around on the Internet and speak to the heads of these organizations who sound nothing more than like a sidewalk preacher warning people that Armaggeddon is coming.  One woman spouted off about an ingredient that was found naturally in potatoes. 

I am not against using safe ingredients; however, things have to make perfect sense to me.  I have a background in chemistry, microbiology, and my Aquarian nature prompts me to research things before I will allow myself to believe anything.  When people come at me with frightening information, my eyebrow instantly goes up because I know that somewhere inside there's some misinformation. 

What's sad is the consumers don't know.  If someone sounds like they know what they're talking about, have someone posing as a doctor verifying it, have expensive fancy campaigns to support it, they'll go with it.  Sad, but true.  Many companies and people were duped by the bill in Colorado which told people in essence many ingredients in lotions and other personal care products caused cancer and were flat out toxic.  The bill ignored ingredients which the FDA deemed as safe.  Here is the bill:  http://www.leg.state.co.us/CLICS/CLICS2010A/csl.nsf/fsbillcont3/399D0F36FF7CAE54872576BD006FDDEC?Open&file=1248_01.pdf

Recently, on another board, we were discussing the ingredient EDTA.  In lotions, EDTA improves a product's stability towards air.  Some people have related it to being a paraben.  It is not.  And I have a whole different position on parabens which is another story.  EDTA is synthesized using:  ethylenediamine (1,2-diaminoethane), formaldehyde, and sodium cyanide.  Sounds pretty bad doesn't it?  Noticed I used the word "synthesized."  In chemistry these components are not mixed together and voila you have an EDTA cake.  So you aren't getting formaldehyde and cyanide in your body when you rub on some lotion.  However, there are people who want you to believe that this is the case.  Let's look at lye.  If someone doused you with some lye you could get some pretty nasty burns on your body, if you inhale too much of it, you could screw up your lungs.  But we use lye to make soap.  When I made soap, I looked pretty much like I was part of a HazMat team.  But you aren't rubbing lye all over your face to clean it.  It becomes soap.  Get the picture?

I only use EDTA in my body butter.  Could I do with out it?  Maybe.  It's only 2 grams so you're only exposed to 0.40 grams of it in my body butter and that's only if you take the entire jar and smather it all over your body.  Would it even reach your bloodstream?  I doubt it.  Would it give you cancer?  I highly doubt it.   Would walking out of your house and breathing the gunky city air we have give you cancer?  Probably.  Could you die from eating that bag of organic spinach because it became contaminated?  Probably. 

I read many of the comments in support of the Colorado bill and there were women on there who swore they contracted cancer because of their lotion.  That all these evil perfume and lotion manufacturers were putting these carcinogens, formaldehyde and cyanide in their bodies every time they rubbed their hands together.   I don't doubt that there are some funny sounding ingredients because the government forces us to use the INCI name (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients).  Someone mentioned on another board that they were at an event and some watchdog group for cosmetic safety mentioned in a poster:  "If you can't pronounce it, it must be harmful."  Yeah, that will scare the crap out of people.  How about:  Butyrospermum Parkii - that's Shea Butter.

People want to get back to this totally natural way of life, but when the totally natural way of life was enacted, people were only living to the age of 40 and dying from the common cold.  My grandmother was raised on a farm eating her own food she grew and killed herself, but she still had diabetes which had to be managed using common medicine.  She lived to the ripe old age of 99.  Then again, I've watched people who lived a life totally organic and sans chemicals drop dead from anneurysms and heart attacks in their 40s and 50s. 

We need a balance between the natural and the man-made chemicals.  After all, people are looking younger and living longer than they ever have.  Yes, we still have cancer, but going after the lotion industry when you have something like EDTA used as a preservative in foods, in the dental industry, in the paper industry, textile, in water and in the medical industry to draw out excess iron in the body and as an antioxidant to remove free radicals from blood vessel walls.  Don't you think we need to give science a little break here?

How about we focus more on going after the known and proven harmful ingredients and when those people come at us about harmful chemicals, ask them to present some real research with both the pros and the cons in their findings.  And ask that they not misappropriate information and most of all, stop scaring people.   I tried the natural and organic way of life and I darn near killed myself.  Now that I'm on man-made medication I'm happy and well.

Chaeya