It was about half-way through college when I abandoned make-up. I had been a faithful female, terrified to show my face without it’s mask of products, struggling with teenage acne, insecurity, and pressure to look “perfect” all the time like everyone else (or so I thought). And I have to tell you that showing a fresh face to the world is a liberating thing. “This is me- uncensored- deal with it!”

But there are other reasons to avoid conventional cosmetics besides letting the world hear you roar. Exhibit A – chemicals…and lots of them. For those of you wearing make up on a daily basis, you should know that over 5 pounds of chemicals are entering your bloodstream annually through your most precious and overlooked organ- your skin.

From OrganicConsumers.org:

“Putting chemicals on your skin is actually far worse than ingesting them, because when you eat something the enzymes in your saliva and stomach help break it down and flush it out of your body. When you put these chemicals on your skin, however, it is absorbed straight into your blood stream without filtering of any kind, so there’s no protection against the toxin. The five pounds of toxic chemicals per year you may be absorbing from the use of toiletries and beauty products are largely going directly to your delicate organs.”

Ladies, if that doesn’t make you shudder, you might want to check your pulse.

Contrary to popular belief, avoiding these toxins doesn’t mean you can’t “put your face on” in the manner to which you have become accustomed- it just means you have to be a little more conscious of the products you buy.

Exhibit B – PeaceKeeper Cause-Metics: a small (but powerful!) skin care company dedicated to creating cosmetics using non-toxic ingredients that will keep your body safe and healthy. They pride themselves on their slogan: no nasty anything! and also have many vegan-friendly products. In fact, the company willingly discloses their ingredient list and the rating each product received from the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep rating system.

And I haven’t even gotten to the warm-&-fuzzy part yet- “Peacekeeper Cause-Metics is the first cosmetics line to give all of its after-tax distributable profits to women’s health advocacy and urgent human rights issues. Peacekeeper builds a bridge between extraordinary women in the land-of-plenty with extraordinary women who just by chance of birth don’t have our resources or opportunties.”

If you visit the site (and you should, even if you’re not in the market for new lipstick right now) be sure to check out one of the company’s very clever philanthropic endeavors, a campaign against the sex-slave industry, in the Kiss Museum.

- The Team at GenGreen

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