by Liz A

When I was hanging around food coops, we used an acronym for many of the non-food items we sold — HABAs — for Health and Beauty Aids. These included cosmetics, soap, shampoo, hand lotion, and so on — those items that you put on your body rather than into it.

 A friend recently sent me a pointer to the Skin Deep Cosmetics Database, compiled and hosted by the Environmental Working Group. Their introduction is as follows:

Skin Deep pairs ingredients in nearly 25,000 products against 50 definitive toxicity and regulatory databases, making it the largest integrated data resource of its kind. Why did a small nonprofit take on such a big project? Because the FDA doesn’t require companies to test their own products for safety.

You can use this database to research the products you use, not just cosmetics, but also items like soap, toothpaste, and sunscreens. You can find out the ingredients, compare to other similar products, and discover the risks (and relative risks) of your favored brand over others. I can imagine using this database to either reassure yourself that the products you use have a low enough impact on your personal and larger environment OR to discover other products that you’d prefer to use in each category.

I’d be interested in any surprises you uncover as you look through the database.