The Safer Beauty Bill Package: Please Add Your Endorsement

Dear Rosebud Woman community,

Are you ready to add your voice to safer beauty for all?

This summer, the Safer Beauty Package, which includes four unique bills, was introduced in the U.S. Congress.

One bill prohibits the use of certain toxic ingredients. Most of these ingredients had already been removed from high-end products, and are illegal in the EU and Canada. Where they were still in use in the US—in cheap products— disproportionately affected women with lower income. There are also racial inequities: hair care products specifically for black women, for example, are extremely toxic. So, it's actually a big social justice issue to step forward and say, “Hey, you can't poison people with these things.”

The second bill that excites us in this bundle concerns supply chain transparency. One of the hardest things for us, as a small brand, is getting disclosures from potential suppliers on where they source the ingredients (or the ingredients for the ingredients) they sell us. This new bill gives makers leverage to ask for documentation, so we can make sure we are directing our spending toward suppliers committed to making a more just world.

The Safer Beauty Bill Package, in general, is an acknowledgment of the work that organizations such as the Environmental Working Group, with their Skin Deep Database of toxicity in beauty ingredients, have pioneered. Forward thinking retailers, such as The Detox Market, and brands like Osea, the Honest Company, Burt’s Bees, and Dr. Hauschka (among others) have long been advocating for these changes. These organizations have been vocal about teaching people that the topical products you put on your skin go into your overall body systems and create a systemic health response. We're really glad to see this work bearing fruit. 

The other two bills—one which protects salon workers, and one which closes the toxic ingredients loophole hidden in the catch-all word “fragrance”—are also useful. Rosebud Woman is proud to endorse all of these bills.

empower yourself

I do want to emphasize, though, how legislative change happens. Clean beauty legislation—much like the moves to decriminalize plant medicine, to treat people equally regardless of their sexual orientation, or to encourage green energy—originates at the local level. People make noise about how they want to live. They change their behavior, and become vocal. They campaign, fundraise, advocate. Similarly, with the clean beauty bills, safer beauty activism was well established in the private sector, at the local and state level, before getting a national response. Often, the actions of the state or federal government are just validations (and institutionalizations) of what's already been done in the culture, or at the local legislative level. So act locally, and watch your efforts snowball into a national movement! YOU matter! Your voice matters. Consciousness evolves at the edges, in the choices each of us make, for greater self-love, and reverence of all.

The Safer Beauty Bill Package’s sponsors write: “Every day, the average American uses roughly 12 personal care products, resulting in exposure to an average of 168 unique chemicals. These chemical exposures have been linked to cancer, infertility, miscarriage, poor infant and maternal health outcomes, obesity, asthma, and many other serious health concerns. Not only are these toxic chemicals entering our bodies through direct application, but excess product that is washed down the drain pollutes our waterways and drinking water, and compounds doses of hazardous chemicals in air, water, food, and other consumer products…..Already, more than 40 countries, including the EU, are far ahead of us in implementing strict cosmetic safety regulations. Meanwhile, we have not significantly updated our federal cosmetics laws since 1938…The Safer Beauty Bill Package will ban 11 of the most toxic chemicals; increase protections for women of color and salon workers who are most often exposed to these toxic chemicals; and make ingredient transparency the new industry standard. It is time the U.S. catch up and give consumers the confidence that their beauty and personal care products are safe.”

The Safer Beauty Bill Package includes four standalone cosmetics bills:

 

-Toxic-free Beauty Act of 2021
-Cosmetic Supply Chain Transparency Act of 2021
-Cosmetic Safety for Communities of Color and Professional Salon Workers Act of 2021
-Cosmetic Fragrance and Flavor Ingredient Right to know Act of 2021

Please join us in applauding and celebrating these new clean beauty bills. You can endorse them by adding your name here.

To your perfect health and pleasure, and a more just world for everyone.

Christine Marie Mason

Founder, Rosebud Woman