Finally, Baby Skin Care Products Safe for Baby!

It's sad to say, but a skincare product can have less than 1% natural ingredients and still put NATURAL on the label! It can even have just ONE ingredient that is natural and still use NATURAL on the label! More and more parents are beginning to look for products for their children and their families that are "Natural," free of unhealthy and dangerous chemicals and additives. But just how "natural" are those products really?

Nature's Baby Products began when Adena Surabian's baby daughter developed a rash that no doctor could cure. Unfortunately, she experienced first hand what happens to a baby when baby products contain untested chemicals, irritating ingredients and even toxins. Both of her daughters suffered from allergies, rashes, eczema or skin irritations caused or worsened by the chemicals in many child and baby products. Armed only with an armful of suspicious products and a computer, Adena discovered both the cause of her baby's rash and how dangerous baby products really can be. She found the only "cure" was the elimination of many of the products she, like most mothers, assumed were safe.

When she searched for products that were gentle, effective and safe, she was discouraged by what she found. No products that were safe left her babies' skin soft. Shampoos that didn't contain harmful chemicals left their hair coarse and filled with static electricity. Chemical-free diaper creams didn't really prevent rashes. In this case, necessity really was the "mother" of invention. And so Nature's Baby Products was born. Adena developed an entire product line of gentle, effective and safe skin and hair care products for her babies - and for yours.
Many of the chemicals you find in baby products give color, fragrance and a certain "feel" to the product. Some are preservatives; others are enhancers that help the product penetrate the skin. However, most haven't been tested for safety, haven't been evaluated for long-term exposure and many are used in products like degreasers and anti-freeze.

Over the last 50 years, the number of synthetic ingredients and petroleum-based products in our lotions and potions has increased by leaps and bounds. Unfortunately, no one knows how safe they are and what their long term effects will be on our bodies - or even on the environment. While these ingredients are cheaper and easier to use in manufacturing, they are potentially more dangerous.

The ingredients used by Nature's Baby Products are safer but more expensive because they use only the purest forms, from the most reliable suppliers. The ingredients they select are 100% botanical, most with a long history of safe and effective use. Other products use chemical preservatives so bottles of shampoo, conditioner and lotion can sit on the shelf for an indefinite period of time. Nature's Baby Products won't put those kinds of chemicals on a baby's skin or hair. Instead, they use advances in packaging and botanically based preservatives that are food-grade or so safe you could eat them.

With all the different products you put on your child's skin every day, shouldn't they all be safe? On any given day, you might shampoo her hair, wash her body, moisturize her skin, protect her with sunscreen, and heal her bottom with diaper cream. In one 24-hour period, you could apply an extraordinary chemical brew of dangerous ingredients to your child. ON AVERAGE, people apply 126 unique ingredients to their skin EVERY DAY. How safe are they? Who knows? The government doesn't require health studies before products are sold. Nor does it require pre-market testing. So no one is watching out for you and your baby.

Just what kind of ingredients are in the shampoos, conditioners, soaps, body washes, cosmetics, etc that we use? A not-for-profit organization called the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has spent the last five years researching that industry for safety. Here is what they found:
--Industrial chemicals are basic ingredients in personal care products. The 10,500 unique chemical ingredients in these products equate to about one of every seven of the 75,000 chemicals registered for use in the U.S. Personal care products contain carcinogens, pesticides, reproductive toxins, endocrine disruptors, plasticizers, degreasers, and surfactants. They are the chemical industry in a bottle.

--No premarket safety testing is required -- this is a reality of both the personal care product industry and the broader chemical industry as a whole. For industrial chemicals, the government approves an average of seven new chemicals every day. Eighty percent are approved in three weeks or less, with or without safety tests. Advocating that industry have an understanding of product safety before selling to the public finds common messages, common methods, and common gains whether the focus is cosmetic ingredients or other industrial chemicals.

Everyone uses personal care products. Exposures are widespread, and for some people, extensive. A 2004 product use survey shows that more than a quarter of all women and one of every 100 men use at least 15 products daily. These exposures add up, and raise questions about the potential health risks from the myriad of unassessed ingredients migrating into the bodies of nearly every American, day after day.

This EWG report goes on to say:
--Eighty-nine (89) percent of the 10,500 ingredients FDA has determined are used in personal care products have not been evaluated for safety by the CIR, the FDA, or any other publicly accountable institution.

Even more frightening, they found that these ingredients that we use on ourselves and our children are not only unsafe, some are downright dangerous.
--More than one-third of all personal care products contains at least one ingredient linked to cancer.
--57 percent of all products contain "penetration enhancer" chemicals that can drive other ingredients faster and deeper into the skin to the blood vessels below.
--79 percent of all products contain ingredients that may contain harmful impurities like known human carcinogens, according to FDA or industry reviews. Impurities are legal and unrestricted for the personal care product industry.

Cosmetic ingredients do not sit tight of the surface of the skin -- they are designed to penetrate, and they do. Scientists have found many common cosmetic ingredient in human tissues, including industrial plasticizers called phthalates in urine, preservatives called parabens in breast tumor tissue, and persistent fragrance components like musk xylene in human fat. Do the levels at which they are found pose risks? For the most part, studies have not been done. But a recent study showing feminization of human male babies in the U.S. linked to a common fragrance component (diethyl phthalate) joins a small but growing number of studies that serve as scientific red flags when it comes to the safety of ingredients in personal care products.
Nature's Baby Products is a signer of the EWG's Compact for the Global Production of Safe Health and Beauty Products. As such, you'll find the highest standards of safety in formulation and preparation for skin and hair care products. Protect your baby and chose the right products for her tender skin. Protect him from synthetic chemicals with unpronounceable names. Demand pure products with safe ingredients for your family. Only you can protect your baby.
For more information, visit Nature's Baby Products

About the Author

Adena Surabian is a "mom inventor" who develops products for families who care about the well-being and safety of their children. Her first company provided a complete line of child-proofing products for new mothers. Nature's Baby Products provides safe, natural, botanically based lotions, shampoos and creams that the whole family can use and enjoy.