Toxic Vanity

Vanity is as old as the mammoth. W.L. George

I loved learning about Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, when I was in London last August. I saw her tomb in Westminster Abbey with a full size effigy of her likeness atop it. Our guide told us the face was one of the few accurate likenesses of Elizabeth because it was created from the actual death mask. He said she never liked her nose and always had her portrait painters change it. I thought her face looked fine for a woman of almost seventy years of age. I don't know how accurate our tour guide's stories were, but they were interesting enough to make me want to learn more about England's fascinating history.

The following portrait was painted when Elizabeth was in her early sixties, and I would think that the artist painting the queen would attempt to flatter her with his efforts.  So we can only imagine what she might have actually looked like at that age.

Portrait of Elizabeth I attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger or his studio, ca. 1595. PD

The portrait below was painted five years after the previous painting, and it is attributed to two different artists, including Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger. Bless his heart. Maybe he felt bad about his first painting. She's a knock-out in the this one, although they do call it an allegorical representation of the Queen. I would love for someone to do an allegorical representation of me.  

Elizabeth I. The "Rainbow Portrait", c. 1600, an allegorical representation of the Queen, become ageless in her old age. PD

Borrowed from Wikipedia

Our guide also told us (which I confirmed) that Elizabeth's face was scarred due to small pox, so she started wearing makeup, which then caused her hair to fall out because the cosmetics were laden with lead. But she had access to wigs and beautiful clothes and obedient portrait artists to compensate for her flaws. I remember thinking at the time that I was glad to be born in an age where makeup is safe to use, and we didn't have to worry about toxic ingredients possibly causing cancer or our hair to fall out, even though my hair is falling out. 

Then I heard a news report about the alarming amounts of lead in women's lipstick. And I told myself that was probably the cheap, unknown brands from China or other countries with less standards of safety. Then I stumbled upon some Websites that say most every well-known brand of makeup and toiletries available in the U.S. uses some toxic ingredients, including lead. 

What?

I did a search to find what cosmetics were made in the U.S., and I didn't find one company that I recognized among the very short list of cosmetics actually made in the U.S. 

I found the following Websites that might be worth looking into. 

http://www.safecosmetics.org/, which created the following Website where you can type in the products you use to see if they contain any questionable or harmful ingredients:

http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/

Cancer and auto-immune diseases are rampant in our culture today, and we need to pause and question if the products we're using or are exposed to in our environment could be related. Somebody else is looking at this, too.

http://www.breastcancerfund.org/reduce-your-risk/tips/choose-safe-cosmetics/

And check out this short video on The Story of Cosmetics:  

http://www.breastcancerfund.org/media/videos/story-of-cosmetics.html

For too much of my life, I've assumed others had my best interests at heart when it came to employers, financial advisors, health care providers, various companies, and even products I used. But getting burned multiple times is finally waking me up. We have to be our own advocates when it comes to our health and safety and stop sticking our heads in the sand assuming everything will be okay if we just don't think about it.