Dear Friend,

I’m taking the liberty to "Kick Some More Establishment Butt" …

I hope you don’t mind but I just gotta do it!

We are continuing about personal care and cosmetic products that may be carcinogenic. It’s a huge wake up call to start changing your life.

Are you getting it that these ingredients cause CANCER? I mean all kinds like BREAST CANCER, LIVER CANCER, SKIN CANCER, THROAT CANCER ETC.

We are nothing more than a marketing project to these big companies like Johnson & Johnson, Este Lauder, Oil of Olay. They mislead you into believing you are using a "good and safe" product when essentially it’s a lie. My favorite are the "aromatherapy" products. If they even know what it means, they may put in one drop and then classify it as aromatherapy OR they decide using a chemically manufactured fragrance – like STRAWBERRY is "aromatherapy". When are you people going to wake up and see through the BS. There is so much information out there about what is REALLY going on and yet you still choose to put your head in the sand. Case in point, I have a sister who told me, at Thanksgiving dinner, that she would rather be a SPOILED EVERGREEN WIFE and go on living her (delusional - my word) life because its easier. It’s like I said last month, for some reason you think if you don’t see the tornado coming, then its not. But what about when it does hit, and believe you me, it is hitting us. If you think the ingredients are bad wait until I start on the GMO’s (genetically modified organisms) in our food. If that won’t wake you up – nothing will.

We at Awakening Spirit use natural/safe ingredients in our products. Show your support by buying them. We guarantee our products and they do what they say they will do. We use a lot of precious essential oils like neroli, rose, ylang-ylang, sandalwood, linden, etc. Our bodies need these exotic oils and that’s why we use them. Anyone can use eucalyptus, lemon, rosemary because they are cheap – and we use them also – but we are more concerned about your health and well-being than we are about the bottom line – what a concept in this consumer driven world! Thank you for your support.

Do you use toothpaste, shampoo, sunscreen, body lotion, body talc, makeup, hair dye? These are among the personal care products the American consumer has been led to believe are safe but that are often contaminated with carcinogenic byproducts, or that contain substances that regularly react to form potent carcinogens during storage and use.

Consumers regularly assume that these products are not harmful because they believe that they are approved for safety by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But although the FDA classifies cosmetics (dividing them into 13 categories), it does not regulate them. An FDA document posted on the agency's World Wide Web home page explains that "a cosmetic manufacturer may use any ingredient or raw and market the final product without government approval." (This is with exception of seven known toxins, such as hexachlorophene, mercury compounds, and chloroform). Should the FDA deem a product a danger to public health, it has the power to pull a cosmetic product from the shelves, but in many of these cases the FDA has failed to do so, while evidence mounts that some of the most common cosmetic ingredients may double as deadly carcinogens.

Examples of products with potential carcinogens are: Clairol "Nice and Easy" hair color, which release carcinogenic formaldehyde as well as Cocamide DEA (a substance which can be contaminated with carcinogenic nitrosamines or react to produce a nitrosamine during storage or use); Vidal Sassoon shampoo (which like the hair dye, contains Cocamide DEA); Cover Girl makeup contains TEA (which is also associated with carcinogenic nitrosamines); Crest toothpaste which contains titanium dioxide, saccharin, and FD&C Blue#1(known carcinogens).

One of the cosmetic toxins that consumer advocates are most concerned about are nitrosamines, which contaminate a wide variety of cosmetic products. In the 1970s nitrosamine contamination of cooked bacon and other nitrite-treated meats became a public health issue, and the food industry, which is more strictly regulated than the cosmetic industry, has since drastically lowered the amount of nitrosamines found in these processed meats. But today nitrosamines contaminate cosmetics at significantly higher levels than were once contained in bacon.

The FDA has long known that nitrosamines in cosmetics pose a risk to public health. On April 10, 1979, FDA commissioner Donald Kennedy called on the cosmetic industry to "take immediate measures to eliminate, to the extent possible, NDELA (a potent nitrosamine) and any other N-nitrosamine from cosmetic products." Since that warning however, cosmetic manufacturers have done little to remove N-nitrosamine from their products, and the FDA has done even less to monitor them.

Individual FDA scientists are speaking out. The FDA’s Donald Harvey and Hardy Chou proclaimed that the continued use of these ingredients contradict what should be a social goal: keeping "human exposure to N-nitrosamines to the lowest level technologically feasible, by reducing levels in all personal care products.’

Student Researchers: Robin Stovall, Garvin Grundmann, and Erika Well

Faculty Evaluator: Debora Hammond, Ph.D.

An awareness of the ingredients in the products

you use every day is essential

 for the safety of your family!!

Sources:

IN THESE TIMES

Title: "To Die For" Date: February 17,1997 Author: Joel Bleifuss

IN THESE TIMES

Title: "Take a Powder" Date: March 3, 1997 Author: Joel Bleifuss

Mainstream coverage: Chicago Tribune, July 29, 1997, Page 3, Zone C

So please, please, please READ your ingredients if you don’t want to use these types of products. The manufacturer’s will not change anything until WE the people REFUSE to buy their products and their sales start to slip!!!

You can be assured that Awakening Spirit uses all natural ingredients and we will be using more organic ingredients within the next few months. We have been researching and finding more organic suppliers. We are very excited to be bringing an even higher quality of products to you, our customers and friends. Please support us by buying our products. This is one way that we know you like what you are reading and that you really do support the natural/organic industry.