The High Price of Beauty

Are girls increasing their risk of breast cancer by wearing blush, or their chances of reproductive abnormalities by applying lip gloss? It sounds crazy, but critics of the cosmetic industry say the concern is in the ingredients.

February 22, 2011 | Source: WPRI | by Susan Hogan

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Are girls increasing their risk of breast cancer by wearing blush, or their chances of reproductive abnormalities by applying lip gloss? It sounds crazy, but critics of the cosmetic industry say the concern is in the ingredients.

And it’s not just environmental health groups sounding the alarm. Right now, new legislation is being introduced to close what legislators call “major loopholes” in a federal law. The bill’s sponsors say the current law leaves Americans unknowingly exposed to potentially harmful mystery ingredients. That’s why Eyewitness News is taking a hard look at the debate over whether cosmetics are truly hazardous to your health, especially for teenage girls.

Young girls are inundated with images of fresh faces, luscious lips and long lashes so tantalizing that any young girl would want to put fruit spritzers on her lips. Girls like 15-year-old Ally Stadolnick and 13-year-old Lindsay Sheehan only care about the results.

Lindsay says, “It just makes me feel prettier about myself, gives me self confidence.”

Most young girls never think about looking at the long list of ingredients on their bottles of foundation or blush, but maybe they should.

Laura Sheehan, Lindsay’s mother, say “You need a pharmacy degree in order to decipher exactly which ingredients and what’s safe and what isn’t safe that they’re putting in the makeup for your child.”