skin deep: cosmetics safety database

One of my students mentioned the cosmetics safety database the other day. It's a website with a database that allows you to check the toxicity levels of your cosmetics and body products.

The skin lotion I like: 8 out of 10. Woops.

Thanks MacKenzie.

Dan, who reads fine print, suggests checking the info on the rating system, here. An excerpt:

The hazard score represents a synthesis of known and suspected hazards from more than 50 definitive databases. The hazard rating of a product can be higher than for its individual ingredients — it adds up the hazards of all ingredients, and is scaled higher if the product has penetration enhancers or other ingredients that increase skin absorption.

The "data gap" rating is a measure of how much is unknown about an ingredient. Not all ingredients have the same amount of safety data. For example, some ingredients may appear to have low hazards, but this may be due to the fact that they have not have been studied or assessed completely. Other ingredients may appear to have low hazards and have been thoroughly studied or assessed. This score helps differentiate between ingredients and products that have been studied to different degrees.