Within a few months a small number of companies began signing the Compact for Safe Cosmetics. By 2007, some three years later, over 500 companies had signed the Compact. Ninety of these companies were from outside the US. However, all the signers were already natural product companies and notably, not even one major US cosmetic company was on the list. The reason? The US Cosmetic Industry is the most unregulated industry under the auspices of the FDA. How does the FDA determine if a cosmetic product is safe, one might ask? The answer is it does not. It leaves safety up to the individual companies themselves. In other words, if the cosmetic company feels its product is safe, it can go on the market.
In 2007 the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics ran a full page ad in USA today. The ad read "Putting on Makeup Shouldn't be like Playing with Matches" and showed a little girl smearing lipstick on her face. Three large cosmetic companies were named in the ad. Within three months all three cosmetic companies removed the EU banned chemicals from their lipstick and produced what essentially became a toxic-free product.
Let's be clear here. That example represents only one product in a lineup of cosmetic products that run into the hundreds per cosmetic company. So, although this was a great step forward, it is only one small step in the big scheme of things with the ultimate mission being to get all cosmetic companies to reformulate their lines to new standards of toxic-free ingredients in all products resulting in safe, healthy, toxic-free cosmetics for everyone.
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