Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry [Paperback]

Stacy Malkan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2007

Lead in lipstick? 1,4 dioxane in baby soap? Coal tar in shampoo? How is this possible? Simple. The $35 billion cosmetics industry is so powerful they’ve kept themselves unregulated for decades. Not Just a Pretty Face chronicles the quest that led a group of health and environmental activists to the world’s largest cosmetics companies to ask some tough questions:

• Why do companies market themselves as pink ribbon leaders in the fight against breast cancer, yet use hormone-disrupting and carcinogenic chemicals that may contribute to that very disease?
• Why do products used by men and women of childbearing age contain chemicals linked to birth defects and infertility?

As doors slammed in their faces and the beauty myth peeled away, the industry’s toxic secrets began to emerge. This scathing investigation peels away less-than-lovely layers to expose an industry in dire need of an extreme makeover. The good news is that while the major multinational companies fight for their right to use hazardous chemicals, entrepreneurs are developing safer non-toxic technologies and building businesses on the values of health, justice and personal empowerment.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Stacy Malkan is communications director of Health Care Without Harm, and a media strategist and cofounding member of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a national coalition working to eliminate hazardous chemicals from personal care products. Stacy is a former journalist and newspaper publisher, and a longtime environmental health advocate who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: New Society Publishers; 1 edition (November 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865715742
• ISBN-13: 978-0865715745
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 0.5 x 6.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #150,145 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 63 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Exposes link between chemicals in cosmetics and cancer October 20, 2007

By Linda of Zosimos Botanicals

Format:Paperback

Stacy Malkan bravely exposes the link between toxic ingredients in mass produced cosmetics to infertility and breast cancer. It is a call to action for people to join the grassroots movement that has been fighting for change. Malkan questions why the fight against breast cancer is focused on Curing those that have the disease rather than Preventing people from getting cancer in the first place. Numerous medical studies are cited throughout the book. Anyone who wears makeup should educate themselves about what chemicals are in the products they wear, this book gives the resources to do that. It also touts natural alternatives.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Every Teen Needs a Copy of This Book October 27, 2007

By Philip Nash

Format:Paperback

Selling skin whiteners, shampoos, lipstick and other products with potentially dangerous ingredients to youth all over the world continues an unfortunate corporate pattern of placing greed over safety and responsibility. Meanwhile, the problem is not just corporate decision-making. Too many consumers continue to accept cosmetic industry propaganda, ignoring the science that says that many of the products we are using to beautify ourselves are poisonous to us and to our offspring as well.

Stacy Malkan's book, "Not Just a Pretty Face," offers an insider's view of the five-year campaign by environmental and health groups to pressure the U.S. cosmetics industry to use safer ingredients. It is a fast read, but very well documented. And the best part is that it does not end by leaving us in a pool of anxiety, scared to touch even a bar of soap.

Readers are uplifted by stories of mothers who organized and fought back on behalf of their children, activists from Women's Voices for the Earth who dressed up as "Miss Treatment" to publicize their concerns, and San Francisco teenagers who wore prom dresses and combat boots at their "Project Prom" rally in Union Square to declare their war on toxic chemicals.

I'm going to order a copy for all of my cosmetics-obsessed younger relatives this holiday season, and you should, too. Even if the only products you use on a regular basis are deodorant and shampoo, you cannot afford to miss this expose on how toxins are hurting our health and the health of our offspring.

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Just Another Pretty Face November 6, 2007

By momofngandag

Format:Paperback

Now I have a rational reason why I don't like make-up and other cosmetics. I bought this to give my daughters the first time they come to me asking to wear make-up. The teens in this book are so bold - what a great way to learn independence and empowerment - the cause is real, they are the market, and they will change it. I hope by the time my daughters are actually old enough to buy these products, the market will have transformed and they won't need to worry about chemicals in their shampoos, nail polish, and blush. Get this for everyone you know, male, female, young or old to uncover what's behind the cosmetics industry push to be "pretty."