House Parties Launched to Help New Parents Detox Their Homes.
Posted May 15th, 2012
Living Green
May 15, 2015
The national women’s health nonprofit Women’s Voices for the Earth (WVE) has come out with a fun way to get rid of toxic chemicals lurking in the home: Throw a party. The organization has been working closely with parents concerned about disconcerting news that unregulated toxic chemicals, including carcinogens, can be found in everyday personal care products, cleaners, and other common household products.
As a result, WVE developed the Green Momma Party. Designed for baby showers, parents’ groups, or get-togethers with friends, a Green Momma Party educates parents about reducing toxic chemicals in the home while empowering them to become advocates for safer products at the same time.
1,4-Dioxane and Laundry Soap: Free and Gentle or a Marketing Free-for-All?
Posted May 8th, 2012
Huffington Post
May 7, 2012
Bill Chameides
More than 80,000 chemicals are produced, used, and present in the United States. This is one of their stories.
Recently The New York Times‘ Green blog raised the spotlight on a report released last November on toxic chemicals found in 20 popular cleaning products. Women’s Voices for the Earth, a national environmental group based in Missoula, Mont., had commissioned independent tests on all-purpose cleaners, laundry detergents, dryer sheets, air fresheners, disinfectant sprays, and furniture polish made by Clorox, Procter & Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser, SC Johnson, and Sunshine Makers. The testing revealed that a number of the products had chemicals that are known to be allergens or are linked to reproductive and endocrine disruption… and cancer.
I have to say the findings do not come as a huge surprise. Previous work (see here and here) has documented the ubiquity of toxic chemicals in everyday consumer products. It’s not even that surprising that some of these compounds are absent from product labels. What may be surprising is that the language used to market some of these toxic-containing products suggests that they would be anything but toxic-containing.
It’s party time!
Posted May 8th, 2012
Pregnancy & newborn
May 2, 2012
So you and your friends have done book club get-togethers, wine tasting shindigs and even batch cooking dinners. But have you ever thrown a green cleaning party? No? Well get ready to have fun and get un-toxicated!
The national nonprofit Women’s Voices for the Earth will launch their “Green Momma Party Guide” on May 11 to help new mothers “green” their house and reduce their infant or toddler’s exposure to toxics in conventional products. Instead of trying to tackle a green house detox by themselves, though, the Green Momma Party Guide makes it fun by giving tips and recipes to throw a ‘Green Momma Party.’ The recipes have been tested by real parents, and are verified by scientific experts to be great non-toxic alternatives to everyday products.
Tide Detergent Found To Contain High Levels Of 1,4-Dioxane, Carcinogenic Contaminant.
Posted May 8th, 2012
Huffington Post
April 26, 2012
Matt Hickman, Mother Nature Network
Now, you probably have enough to worry about as it is with geese colliding into airplanes, Kim Kardashian considering going into public service, and the fact that your teenager may or may be not drinking hand sanitizer, but I thought I’d bring this to your attention: That big jug of non-black market Tide sitting in your laundry room? Well, it contains trace amounts of a substance deemed by the Environmental Protection Agency as a probable carcinogenic based on tests performed with lab rats.
According to The New York Times, 1,4-dioxane, a petrochemical solvent found in paints, varnishes, and some cosmetics, has once again, after gaining infamy a few years back, become the questionable household chemical de jour (it’s like we hardly knew ‘ya, phthalates) as environmental and health advocacy groups urge Procter & Gamble to reformulate the massively popular laundry detergent sold in the big orange bottle to contain decreased levels of the cancer-causing chemical.
Procter & Gamble Defends Against Claims that Tide Detergents Contain Carcinogens.
Posted May 1st, 2012
Forbes
April 30, 2012
Amy Westervelt
Last year, in its Dirty Secrets report, environmental group Women’s Voices for the Earth sent 20 different cleaning products out to an independent lab to find out what, if anything, the products contained beyond the ingredients listed on their labels. The results included a number of surprising discoveries, including the presence of 1,4 dioxane, a solvent the EPA calls a “probable carcinogen,” in the two Tide detergents tested–Tide Original Scent and Tide Free & Gentle.
1,4 Dioxane is a by-product of the chemical processes used to formulate the detergents, not an ingredient added to the mix. According to Alexandra Scranton, director of science and research for Women’s Voices for the Earth, it’s relatively easy to remove from a product. “It’s a contaminant from using things like sodium laureth sulfate, not something they add intentionally,” she says. “But it is a fairly expected contaminant. There are certain things that you do you know you’ll get 1,4 dioxane with, and there are fairly easy things you can do to make sure you don’t get it.”
Tide detergent found to contain high levels of carcinogenic contaminant.
Posted April 25th, 2012
Mother Nature Network blog
April 25, 2012
Matt Hickman
Now, you probably have enough to worry about as it is with geese colliding into airplanes, Kim Kardashian considering going into public service, and the fact that your teenager may or may be not drinking hand sanitizer, but I thought I’d bring this to your attention: That big jug of non-black market Tide sitting in your laundry room? Well, it contains trace amounts of a substance deemed by the Environmental Protection Agency as a probable carcinogenic based on tests performed with lab rats.
Mothers Challenge a Trace Contaminant in Tide.
Posted April 23rd, 2012
New York Times Green blog
April 23, 2012
Andrew Martin
In their quest to rid cleaning products of toxic chemicals, consumer advocates have now set their sights on Tide, the best-selling laundry detergent.
Last fall, the environmental group Women’s Voices for the Earth commissioned laboratory tests on 20 cleaning products and found what it described as problematic levels of 1,4 dioxane, a solvent, in Tide Free & Gentle (fragrance free) and Tide Original Scent, said Erin Switalksi, the group’s executive director. Smaller amounts of the chemical were found in Bounce Free & Sensitive (fragrance free), dryer sheets that are used to reduce static.
The Data Chasm in Cosmetics Safety: Brazilian Blowout and beyond.
Posted April 12th, 2012
The Pump Handle
April 11, 2012
Elizabeth Grossman
While the US Supreme Court was debating the Affordable Care Act, the US House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee Health Subcommittee held a hearing to examine the current federal oversight of cosmetics and personal care product safety. The hearing revealed that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the federal agency that oversees the more than eight billion such products now sold annually in the US, knows astonishingly little about these products’ ingredients. This data gap – perhaps better described as a data chasm – is compounded by the inadequacy of current Material Safety Data Sheets, and leaves US workers and consumers without sufficient information about how these products may affect their health.
The Latest Cosmetics Scandal: Toxic Nail Polish.
Posted April 11th, 2012
EcoWatch
April 11, 2012
California Environmental Protection Agency’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) announced on April 10 that some nail care products typically found in many of California’s estimated 48,000 nail salons and sold directly to consumers contain high levels of hazardous chemicals despite their labels claiming otherwise. These chemicals, dibutyl phthalate and toluene, have been linked to birth defects, asthma and other chronic health conditions.
The Toxic Trio in “Nontoxic” Nail Polish.
Posted April 11th, 2012
Rodale
April 11, 2012
Emily Main
California researchers find more reasons that we can’t trust claims on cosmetics labels.
Healthy cosmetics can be hard to find. Claims like “natural” and even “organic” aren’t well regulated, and every few months, you hear of another report finding that lipstick is contaminated with lead and even baby shampoo contains cancer-causing dioxins.
