Last week I posted Annie Leonards video, The Story Of Cosmetics, which highlights the gross gaps of negligence and back-handed political business dealings of government lobby groups, big beauty business and the FDA. Well, as expected, more than a few feathers were ruffled.
To say the least, big beauty is hot, angry mad and calling the movie nothing more than a bunch of fear-mongering. Really??? Let's take a step back and compare notes with the EU (European Union) in terms of how many KNOWN toxic, cancer-causing ingredients have been banned there versus the United States. In case you haven't watched the movie, it's something like EU = over one thousand, US = 10. Yup, 10 of the approximately 1100 known ingredients. Why is this ok? Well, here is what is happening out there in response to the film.
From TheStoryOfStuff.com:
Surprise, surprise: the big cosmetics companies aren't such big fans of the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010-legislation introduced yesterday to more strictly regulate their business-or of our new movie. The Personal Care Products Council went so far as to issue a statement calling The Story of Cosmetics a "repugnant and absurd...shockumentary." Whoa!
There's a good reason the cosmetics industry doesn't like all the attention it's getting: for years, they've been largely left alone to decide what's safe to put in their products. You know, things like lead in lipstick. Neurotoxins in body spray. Carcinogens in baby wash.
Now that's repugnant!
Yesterday, the industry front group released their own plan for "reforming" cosmetics industry regulation-basically a lame, watered-down version of the kinds of changes that would really help to make our products safer and healthier.
To learn more about the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010, click here, or check out Stacy's blog to learn more about the industry press conference.
Now is a critical time to really turn up the volume on personal care product safety and to demand that Congress forces cosmetics companies to get the neurotoxins and carcinogens out of our personal care products.
We got a great start yesterday: thanks to you, more than 50,000 people have watched The Story of Cosmetics over the last 24 hours and thousands more have taken action to make sure we get these nasty toxics out of our products. Yay!
In the next week, we want at least 100,000 more people to watch the film and add their voices to the call to clean up the cosmetics industry.
Will you help us get there?
Just keep doing what you're doing-posting the video on your Facebook or Twitter, forwarding it to friends, family and colleagues, writing about it on your blog, shouting the url from the rooftops! It also really helps when you comment on blog posts that mention the film.
And of course, make sure that you visit the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics website to sign a letter to your Member of Congress. Make your voice count!
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