Behind Beauty is a social awareness campaign that sheds light on the toxic side of beauty and personal care products.
Our society has made great progress as to the promotion of personal care. The requirement to look good and to be clean is met with the consumption of cosmetics, a seemingly endless array of which is available for purchase at any drugstore. There are countless advertisements promoting makeup and various personal care products, however none of them ever mention the ingredients that go into the product and how they can affect one’s health. Most products consist of toxic ingredients that have been linked to cancer, learning disabilities, asthma, and the disturbance of reproductive health. Paraben, a preservative found in most makeup products, is known to increase the risk of breast cancer, and formaldehyde, another preservative, is cancer-causing in general. Some products with appealing “green” labels are often mistaken for being organic simply because they look it. However, the list of ingredients on the back of the container reveals that the product consists of a chemical cocktail, some elements of which are toxic and should not be put into the human body. This misrepresentation is often done deliberately by companies in order to increase sales. The lack of knowledge that most people have regarding this issue is profitable for companies and detrimental to peoples’ health.
