Find Out the Ingredients In Your Personal Care Products

I write a lot about what we put into our bodies. How about what we put on our bodies?

A great website to find out more information about the relative safety of our personal health care products is the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep cosmetic safety database.

According to the website, the goal of the database is to provide:

"[P]ractical solutions to protect yourself and your family from the health risks we all face from everyday exposures to myriad industrial chemicals.

In 2004 we launched Skin Deep, an online safety guide for cosmetics and personal care products. Our aim was to fill in where companies and the government leave off: companies are allowed to use almost any ingredient they wish, and our government doesn't require companies to test products for safety before they're sold. EWG's scientists built Skin Deep to be a one-of-a-kind resource, integrating our in-house collection of personal care product ingredient listings with more than 50 toxicity and regulatory databases."

Over 40,000 items (with more than 8,000 ingredients) are listed, including toothpastes, deodorants, lipsticks and shampoos.