MamAnomolie

Recently while watching television with my husband, a commercial came on for some lip gloss. "Sometimes I wish I was one of those people who could see a commercial for something like lip gloss and just go out and buy it," I said to Jonathan. I am not one of those people. Not since becoming more aware of all of the questionable ingredients that can be found in our lip gloss, shampoo, lotion - all of our personal care products.

Luckily, there is a GREAT resource out there that can help you sort through all of those ingredients and make informed decisions about what you put on yourself. It's the Cosmetic Safety Database from the Environmental Working Group. The Cosmetic Safety Database lets you look up just about any personal care product out there. Each one has been ranked on a scale of 1 to 10 based on the known and suspected hazards or each of the ingredients.

The database is incredibly thorough. One thing I really like about it is that you can look up everything from the froo froo fancy organic shampoo to the CVS brand of shampoo. But c'mon, doesn't somebody already test all of these products for safety? Nope. And while there are about 1,000 ingredients banned from personal care products in the European Union, there are only about 9 banned here in the U.S.

So, take a look at the Cosmetic Safety Database, but be warned, you may never see lip gloss commercials the same way.