Most Americans use about 10 personal care products each day. The toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant, baby powder and other things that we routinely douse or slather on our bodies expose us to at least 100 different chemicals. Many of these, public health experts say, have been linked to adverse health effects like cancer, birth defects and learning disabilities.

There is nothing that the Food and Drug Administration can legally do about it.

But that may begin to change later today after two Democratic lawmakers — Reps. Jan Schakowsky from Illinois and Edward Markey from Massachusetts — introduce the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010. If passed, it will be the first meaningful effort to give the FDA the teeth, tools and mandate to protect consumers from harmful products that are used by almost everyone.

Under the current absence of oversight, it’s legal for cosmetics companies to use virtually any ingredient with no pre-market safety assessment.

This has bothered many of FDA’s risk experts and toxicologists, who say they’re eager to have the authority to delve into the litany of potentially hazardous chemicals in these products.