Monday, July 16, 2012

Inquiry 3: 1st Resource

"Organic or Not?" naturepurity.com. Web. 15 July 2012.

Basically, this article focuses on the fact that consumers cannot know for sure if a makeup product is actually organic or not. It is informing people how unhealthy makeup is in general all the while telling them that organic makeup is not really organic. The article began by saying that organic makeup is found everywhere and made out to be healthy. It lists places, such as health food stores, that these advertisements for "organic" health products can be found and then the author directly states that in the article the reader will find out how companies trick them into thinking their products are healthy and organic. The next paragraph reveals the truth about organic makeup; it is not really organic. It starts off by saying that the USA does not have regulations for the use of "natural" or "organic" in the labeling of health care products. The author goes on to say that this allows a lot of room for false claims and abuse, but that the USDA is working to develop a program for organization certification on cosmetics. After that the author explain that companies are deceitful by listing ingredients such as Cocamide-DEA as natural simply because it is derived from coconut oil. The author also mentions that companies are basically lying to their customers by failing to inform them that the mixing of ingredients can lead to accidentally forming nitrosamines (chemicals that penetrate the skin easily). The last two sections of the article talk about how many chemicals are absorbed and how the accumulation of chemicals in tissues of organs over time are not good! After that the author mentions that Europe and Canada have "Cosmebio" which lets consumers know what products are organic and which are not. The very last thing the article says is to at least reduce your exposure to the chemicals in products by using organic.

The overall message I got from this article is that almost all makeup contains chemicals whether we like it or not, we can reduce our intake of these chemicals by using organic products but know that they are not entirely organic. Chemicals are harmful to our bodies on the interior and people do not realize it because they are never informed. People are tricked into thinking products are completely chemical free when they truly are not, but the USDA is working on that.

I still need to narrow my topic or question for inquiry three (How does makeup affect our health?). I need to figure out if I want to talk about a specific type of makeup or makeup in general and then exactly what type of health or if there is a specific health problem. However, this article helps me in the general scheme of things. It argues that makeup companies trick us into thinking their products are health for us, how they do this, and why their makeup is not actually healthy for us. I learned that the USA does not have regulations on this topic, but other countries do. Because of this article I learned that the harmful effects of makeup penetrate deeper than the skin which I think makes makeup a more serious problem. I can now say that since human skin absorbs applied products directly into the blood stream and makeup products contain harmful chemicals people should stop using makeup all together or reduce their chemical intake by using organic makeup. I can say that they should do this because if they do not, the accumulation of chemicals over the years can cause "body burden" (the article briefly explained what this is and gave a link to learn more which I am planning on doing to see if it will help me further).

Perhaps using this article as a start to my research, despite its generality rather than specificity, will help me find other sources that will further answer my inquiry three question.

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