Look Great, Live Green is chock-full of the kind of information about exactly what we're putting on on skin (and our hair and our teeth) that it would take you years to pull together on your own.
Author Deborah Burnes owns her own all-natural (really!) skin care line and she has really gone the extra mile to find out what's in the drugstore and luxury products and how all of those synthetic products add up to a chemical soup on our largest organ - our skin.
The book includes an overview of the current manufactured cosmetic industry and the sorry state of federal regulation of topical products and toxic ingredients. Burnes offers helpful "Good-Better-Best" lists of alternative products, and while most of us may not be ready to make our own deodorant, thinking through the cumulative effects on ourselves and the planet is a good thing.
If you ARE interested in making homemade care products, Burnes includes easy-to-use recipes and handy "What To Avoid When You're Shopping" lists. The wealth of information is sometimes overwhelming, and the book would have benefited from more bulleted lists and a judicious pruning of Burnes' anecdotes. Her publisher also did her no favors in the production department. The paragraphs are way too long for this kind of book and the type is squeezed too close together, giving many pages a "gray" effect that makes them difficult to read.
But Burnes has written a good guide to those looking to make some changes, large or small. Look Great, Live Green: Choosing Bodycare Products that Are Safe for You, Safe for the Planet
I received a copy of this a few months ago and am finding myself referring to it regularly when considering which brands to select in my ongoing effort to rid my household of as many toxic products as possible. It has become one of the more useful guides I own because it actually gives lists of real brands to consider as well as providing all the information a consumer needs to make a better choice if those particular brands are hard to come by.
The book begins with a quick look at trends in makeup throughout history. It then moves into a discussion about how the ingredients in the products we use can affect our health. From the outset, the author reassures the reader that this book is for everyone, no matter how strongly you feel about limiting your exposure to toxins. Burnes accomplishes this by encouraging you to find your "comfort zone" and providing lists of products rated as "good," "better," and "best." I personally find this approach refreshing. It is too easy, with the onslaught of books coming out on this subject, to get obsessed with how toxic the world is. Most of us want to make some changes without dedicating our entire lives to avoiding everything that might harm us.
Deborah Burnes has really done her homework. I appreciate her emphasis on being an informed consumer and the importance of recognizing how companies often limit access to ingredient information, overstate the green-ness of their products, and fool consumers into thinking that because one product is really free of the scary stuff, that their entire product line is just as safe. She urges consumers to do their homework and contact companies for further information when it is either missing or vague. Her opinion on the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep database echoes my own - while it's a great tool, it has a long way to go to give us an accurate comprehensive sense about what's safe and what's not. Not that that's their fault - in many cases, product information is very hard to get, and dissecting all the research done on just one chemical is monumental by itself, let alone for everything that shows up in the things we use every day. The fact that Burnes took the time to try and verify information by tracking down primary sources referred to by the industry about the ingredients tells me she's serious about obtaining and analyzing the facts. Her tips on how to get the best use of the Skin Deep database are valuable to me, as I am someone who has been a bit frustrated by how much it still lacks but haven't yet discovered a better source for researching the safety of a product.
Her top ten lists are full of good tips in small bites. I plan to put them in my pda so they are always with me when I'm shopping.
A solid foundation in media literacy is something I think is a must for everyone, and I consider myself pretty well informed. But Burnes reveals things about personal care products that even I didn't know about - how a manufacturer can leave out ingredients it lists on the product's labels, tricks used in advertising to make a company seem "greener," and how words like "natural" and "organic" lack concrete definitions or FDA laws about how they can be used. I love the real life examples she gives in this book, such as when she takes a bottle of Suave shampoo and summarizes the scientific research on health effects for each ingredient. But health is not her only focus in this book - she is also concerned about sustainability and environmental impacts. The book raises consciousness about the use of resources in packaging, ingredients, and what it takes to actually get it to a store's shelves.
The largest portion of the book is devoted to comparison shopping. It covers brands I see regularly in the places I shop - and sometimes reveals tidbits about those stores themselves. The author isn't shy about difficulties she's had while researching a brand, a product, a store, or an organization, but her concerns are never petty or trivial. Although it could be argued that she does have some self-interest in how this information is presented because she is also has her own line of beauty products, nevertheless, her thorough investigative work makes her a credible source of information. I feel that the author has done a lot of the legwork for me, as a consumer, in writing this book.
One thing I find a little odd is that her section on chemical-free makeovers provides analysis of products from her own company, Sumbody. It reads a bit like advertising camouflaged as strictly-informative text. But in some ways it adds to her credibility as a manufacturer because she writes about how her process of developing a product unfolds, which could be very useful to anyone wanting to start their own product line.
The book concludes with some recipes for natural products, ideas for the engaged activist, a list of resources for doing further research, appendices for both natural and toxic ingredients, a bibliography, and index.
I would have left out the excerpts from the rich and famous - this book doesn't need them. It's as if someone thought adding famous people to the book would make it more appealing, more "sparkly." But the text is solid and valuable on its own; no window dressing is needed.
In sum, this is a treasure of information on a topic the author clearly feels passionate about. I highly recommend it for anyone who wishes to make healthier, better-informed decisions about the products they use every day. - Earth-friendly - Natural Beauty - Health - Green Living'
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