Is Your Lipstick Toxic?

Exchange Your Old Lipsticks At Elephant Pharm For All- Natural, Pharmacy Favorites� Lipsticks

Issued March 8, 2007

They sound harmless enough � Tunisian Moon, Iced Melon, Tea Rose � but did you know your old lipsticks may contain toxic chemicals, petroleum and potentially harmful ingredients like butylated hydroxyanisole, artificial colors and other chemicals that can cause irritation or possibly worse.

Elephant Pharm - the Bay Area's leading alternative to typical chain drug stores - invites members of the community to clean out their make-up drawers and purses. For every two tubes you bring in to Elephant Pharm's Bay Area stores from March 15-28, you'll get two tubes of Pharmacy Favorites � natural lipsticks for the price of one.

Elephant Pharm's stores are located in Berkeley, San Rafael and Los Altos.

�This is one event in an ongoing series of Elephant Pharm's efforts to help educate and encourage people to make informed and healthy lifestyle choices,� said Lauren Schiller, the company's VP of Marketing.

These lipsticks are healthy formulas free of petroleum and FD&C dye. The company uses certified organic oils, aloe and herbs, pure essential oils and natural minerals.

�We are committed to offering our customers a huge array of choices, and take great pride in our natural cosmetics department,� said Al Briscoe, Head of Merchandising for Elephant Pharmacy.

CALIFORNIA TAKES THE LEAD

Because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not have the legal authority to review or regulate cosmetic products or ingredients for safety, some states have taken steps to ensure that consumers have access to safer products and more information about the products they buy.

On January 1, 2007, California became the first state in the nation to enact legislation governing the safety and reporting of cosmetic ingredients. The California Safe Cosmetics Act requires manufacturers to disclose to the state any product ingredient that is on state or federal lists of chemicals that cause cancer or birth defects. Many in the chemical and cosmetics industries had vigorously opposed the bill despite evidence linking chemical ingredients in cosmetics to breast cancer, according to the San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Fund, www.breastcancerfund.org

The Breast Cancer Fund is a member of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, www.SafeCosmetics.org., a coalition of U.S. based health and environmental groups working to protect cosmetics consumers from toxic chemicals and hold companies accountable for the safety of their products.

Women and girls use an average of 12 personal care products daily, according to a 2004 survey conducted by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. One out of every 100 personal care products on the market contains known or probable carcinogens and only 11 percent of the more than 10,500 ingredients in products have been assessed for safety, according to Skin Deep, www.ewg.org/reports/skindeep, an online, brand-by-brand safety guide that contains in-depth information on more than 14,000 products and their ingredients by the Environmental Working Group.

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