Ingredient Safety – Phthalates

This is part I in a series of posts on ingredient safety and what to look for and avoid in your personal care and home care products.

Awareness.

We’ve got to start somewhere on our journey toward healthier living, so let’s begin by increasing our understanding & awareness of the harmful chemicals we’re exposed to every day.
Phthalates (pronounced THAL-lates) are plasticizers – they make plastic more pliable (think shower curtains). They are a huge component of PVC plastic, which is one of the more toxic plastics.
In personal care and beauty products, phthalates make fragrances stick to skin, styling products malleable, and nail polish bend and stick to the curve of your nails.
They block signaling pathways for hormones. They’re potent hormone disruptors.

“There is no end to the tricks that endocrine disruptors can play on our bodies: increasing production of certain hormones; decreasing production of others; imitating hormones; turning one hormone into another; interfering with hormone signaling; telling cells to die prematurely; competing with essential nutrients; binding to essential hormones; accumulating in organs that produce hormones.” – Environmental Working Group

It’s important to avoid ingredients like this.

Where do you begin???

According the the Environmental Working Group:

“A good place to start is to avoid plastic food containers, children’s toys (some phthalates are already banned in kid’s products), and plastic wrap made from PVC, which has the recycling label #3. Some personal care products also contain phthalates, so read the labels and avoid products that simply list added ‘fragrance,’ since this catch-all term sometimes means hidden phthalates.”

Find phthalate-free personal care products with EWG’s Skin Deep Database: www.ewg.org/skindeep/ also has a list of the ‘dirty dozen endocrine disruptors’.
This is why I am SO proud to work with a safer skincare company that is shaking up the beauty industry and advocating for more health protective laws for everyone. Who are they? Beautycounter. We educate, provide solutions through safer products and advocate for more health protective laws. Find out more here.

Comment below to ask questions or share your experiences on your journey to cleaner living.

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