Not Just a Pretty Face

Lead in lipstick? 1,4 dioxane in baby soap? Coal tar in shampoo? How is this possible? Simple. The $35 billion cosmetics industry is so powerful they've kept themselves unregulated for decades. Not Just a Pretty Face chronicles the quest that led a group of health and environmental activists to the world's largest cosmetics companies to ask some tough questions: Why do companies market themselves as pink ribbon leaders in the fight against breast cancer, yet use hormone-disrupting and carcinogenic chemicals that may contribute to that very disease? Why do products used by men and women of childbearing age contain chemicals linked to birth defects and infertility? Stacy Malkan's book, "Not Just a Pretty Face," offers an insider's view of the five-year campaign by environmental and health groups to pressure the U.S. cosmetics industry to use safer ingredients. It is a fast read, but very well documented. And the best part is that it does not end by leaving us in a pool of anxiety, scared to touch even a bar of soap. As doors slammed in their faces and the beauty myth peeled away, the industry's toxic secrets began to emerge. This scathing investigation peels away less-than-lovely layers to expose an industry in dire need of an extreme makeover. The good news is that while the major multinational companies fight for their right to use hazardous chemicals, entrepreneurs are developing safer non-toxic technologies and building businesses on the values of health, justice and personal empowerment.