Dutch Artists put a Year's worth of Makeup on a Model in 1 day

Earlier this week the Daily Mail Online in the UK reported about a Dutch artist that made a film as they applied a year's worth of makeup on a model.  

This doesn't appear to be a political statement, but rather an artistic one...although some might argue that all art is political to some extent.

It's interesting to see just how much makeup women wear in a year, and I have to admit, it's a bit creepy. 

According to Daily Mail online, "The pair told the Nowness website: 'We wanted to apply 365 layers of makeup in one day to see how much is needed to go from a natural look to an outrageous one.'...They revealed that they even did a 100-layer trial run, to ensure that Ms Knuts would come to no harm."

And this is the part that I found interesting.  These artists weren't using natural makeup.  They were using the typical chemical brands.  And their fear that the model would come to harm from it was very telling.  We often think (well, not those of you who read Greenwala regularly, but the average person) that the products on store shelves are perfectly safe.  It's often argued that we are exposed to such minute amounts daily that it really isn't a concern.  And yes, exposure over a year's time versus 1 day does give the body more time to deal with the toxins and foreign substances.  However, that doesn't make them safe.  

Many of the ingredients in beauty products bioaccumulate and it's rarely taken into consideration what happens when chemicals interact inside the body.  Product A may have chemicals 1, 2 & 3 and Product B has chemicals 4, 5 & 6.  Each product may have tested the ingredients they've combined to make their product, but they haven't tested what happens when the chemicals in multiple products interact.  

And, this is why there is so little understanding of the real impact of synthetic chemicals upon health and why preventing the disesases caused by synthetic chemicals can be so complicated.  Even if every product you use it totally nontoxic...we can't totally control our environment and we can't totally eliminate all toxic synthetic chemicals from our lives.  That's why, for me, eliminating them where I can is so important...and especially the ones that are optional and in products we use on a daily basis.

You can read the rest of the article here.  After you've read it, come back and tell us what you take from it.  It's really thought provoking, and I'm sure we'll all take something different from it.