Is Your Makeup Safe?

Think Dirty is an app that shows you beauty products that have good and bad ingredients in them. You can get on the app and search for a product (or scan the barcode) and see the ingredients list. Each ingredient is highlighted green, yellow or red depending on the level of toxicity. Each product also has a number rating to show how toxic the product is, on a scale of 0-10. You can also click on each individual ingredient for a breakdown of the chemical composition, its use, health impacts and sources. Sometimes it even references relevant court cases.

For instance, we know that parabens are a preservative for makeup, and thus almost every eyeshadow has parabens in it. So if you get on Think Dirty and search for the Urban Decay Naked 2 palette, you see it is rated with a 7. The first section you see is the ‘Dirty Meter’ which shows on a scale how bad the product is. If you click on the ingredient list and select the first harmful ingredient, Talc, you see a lot more supportive information. It references a court case, where a woman used a Johnson and Johnson product that gave her Ovarian Cancer that eventually killed her. The Plaintiff was awarded $72 million in damages. Then if you select the ‘Our Picks’ button, the app recommends similar products that have better ingredients.

I just wanted to share with you all this app because it is super, super helpful. I know it can be hard to limit all your beauty products to completely healthy ones, especially if you really love your products. However, you could potentially cut out a few products that ranked a 10 versus a 3-5. Plus, you will be able to see the known affects of the ingredients in the products.

Just because one brand has some products with highly negative ratings, doesn’t necessarily mean you have to forsake the brand altogether. There are potentially other products that have better ratings within the brand.

Happy Styling!