How many of you remember frolicking in your bath as a little munchkin, enjoying lots of foamy bubble bath and washing with gentle, kid-friendly soaps.  Little kids can cry fairly easily; especially when they get soap in their eyes. Yet, cosmetic companies were able to make bath time all about fun without tears by selling your parents kid-safe stuff such as No More Tears. Well, in addition to No More Tears, how about a lot of toxins? It turns out that those so-called baby and child safe products are actually filled with lots of harmful toxins.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics did some tests on supposedly safe and gentle kids products and found 61% of them laden with cancer and allergy-causing chemicals like formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane.  Both are probably carcinogens, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. This situation is even especially serious because these products are for kids whose small, growing bodies are much more sensitive to chemical exposures than adults. Scary, huh?

What’s even more frustrating is that although the Food and Drug Administration oversees these products, it doesn’t require companies to tests for these toxins nor do they need to be listed on product labels.   Scary and frustrating, right? It’s time for bath-time to be a toxic-free zone for all babies and kids.

Whether or not you have a young child, there are things you can do to take action and prevent the use of these toxins.  Read the report and learn more at the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. Add your signature to their petition asking for the FDA to thorougly regulate all cosmetics, for babies and adults.

(photo: kama21, flickr Creative Commons)