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The Brazilian that could cause cancer

The Brazilian blow-dry is the hairstyle that's turning heads worldwide. But few women in Britain realise it has also sparked a major health scare.

While governments around the globe have sounded alarm bells over the treatment, in Britain the authorities' response has been lukewarm at best.

One of the blow-dry's main ingredients is formaldehyde, a pungent gas which is used to bind the protein keratin to the hair, resulting in poker-straight locks.

Widely used to manufacture building products, in liquid form formaldehyde is also used as an embalming fluid.

But Canadian authorities declared the chemical a toxic substance as far back as 1999.

It is banned for some uses in Europe and the International Agency for Research on Cancer has declared it a known carcinogen — or cancer-causing substance.

Yet British lawyer Karen Jackson — of legal firm Roberts Jackson, who specialise in dealing with industrial diseases — says: "Here there have been no official warnings about the use of these kinds of treatments, despite alerts issued in the US and Europe."

In America the Department of Health and Human Services has added formaldehyde to its list of carcinogens and advised avoiding exposure to it.

Earlier this year American health authorities issued a hazard alert to salon owners and workers about the risk of using the chemical.

Now it has been branded "dangerous" by the US Food and Drug Administration who have issued a warning that many Brazilian blow-dry products — even those labelled "formaldehyde free" — can contain methylene glycol. This is simply formaldehyde dissolved in water, which can release the gas into the air.

A-list fans of the style include Liz Hurley Jennifer Aniston, Kim Kardashian, Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie.

Yet there have been hundreds of complaints by US stylists complaining of allergic reactions after carrying out Brazilian blow-dries.

In the US the makers of Brazilian Blowout — the country's top-selling brand — are facing legal action by 200 people who say the product has damaged their health. Although Canada banned it in 2010, the manufacturers are continuing to maintain it is safe.

In Britain Emma Meredith, of trade body the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Perfumery Association, said: "The CTPA issued an information sheet about the Brazilian blow-dry a year ago because we were concerned about what was coming to light about the product.

"It was being marketed as a totally natural and chemical-free treatment, but there is no such thing as chemical-free."

At Fabulous Hair Salon in East London they are doing a roaring trade in Brazilian blow-dries.

Stylist Nikki Henderson says: "They are hugely popular, as they can really tame frizzy hair. But we only use formaldehyde-free solution in our salon."

How it works
THE Brazilian blow-dry is hailed as miraculous by women who hate their frizzy hair. It calms tangled locks, leaving hair shiny, sleek and perfectly straight for up to four months.

Created in Brazil six years ago, the technique uses "natural" products such as the protein keratin. A solution is put on to the hair, then sealed in with extra-hot hair straighteners.

But one of the other main ingredients of the blow-dry is the chemical formaldehyde, which is used to bind the keratin to the hair — and which is causing the worldwide concern.

Potential dangers
US studies of mortuary workers using high levels of formaldehyde have shown raised incidence of a rare kind of nasal cancer.

Among reactions reported by stylists doing Brazilian blow-dries are hair loss, blisters, rashes, blistered scalps, dizziness, vomiting, mouth ulcers, eye irritations and breathing problems. Experts say there are also fears that if absorbed into the scalp the chemical can affect the growth of new hair.

Brit lawyer Karen Jackson says: "Beauty is not worth this level of risk."

EU rules state that Brazilian blow-dry hair solution must contain less than 0.2 per cent formaldehyde to be considered safe.

But in the US some straightening treatments have been found using 50 times this amount.

And there are fears here that some beauty salons are ignoring the warnings and continuing to use unsafe products.

Last year the EU issued warnings about four straightening treatments used in the UK — Brazilian Blowout, Coppola, Global Keratin and KeraStraight.

They should have been cleared from store shelves but earlier this year trading standards officials found they were still being used in salons all over the UK.

Check out our effective and natural hair taming products

Source: thesun.co.uk

Figs & Rouge - New Instore!

Figs & Rouge had an idea - to create a balm that would be completely free from any Harmful chemicals & synthetic ingredients - Voila! -
              
A 100% Organic, 100% Pure, 100% Natural skincare product! Vitamin enriched Organic Essential Oils,Pure Nourishing shea butters and Natures best Organic Bees wax. This award winning formulation is made to deliver the best & most Effective moisturising & Natural balm for all skin types!

Packed with pure & organic essential oils, fatty acids, vitamin e. and a whole host of nutrients - Figs & Rouge balms are incredibly good for skin!

Rejuvenating organic shea butters, soothing bees wax & delicious aromas combine to make these organic balms little wonder tins for all skin types.

The balms are Soil Association certified and have celebrity fans which include Emma Watson and Lizzy Jagger.

The full Figs & Rouge range is now available at www.lucyrose.biz

Summer Recovery

Recovery Programme

Prevention is always the best way to ensure your recovery from the Summer is smooth and minimal.

Protect Hair
Spray hair before going out with John Masters Sea Mist Spray – this will protect hair from salty sea air, chlorine and the sun.

Home Remedy
2 tbsp coconut oil
2 tbsp jojoba oil
10 drops ylang ylang
Shake it to combine, then use a little of this oil to protect the hair.

Dry hair after holiday?
Use Green People Vitamin Conditioner – This contains aloe vera & avocado to re-condition your hair and nourish the scalp.

Apply extra conditioner and sit in a sauna for maximum benefit. (adding heat, helps the product penetrate into the hair shaft)

Cracked Heels
Always file heels at least once a week to remove any dead, hard skin. It is very important to then moisturise afterwards with a rich foot cream such as the Burts Bees Coconut Foot Cream – This will soothe, revive and soften tired feet.

Home Remedy
Soak feet for 15 mins in a hot foot bath with 2 tbsp of Bicarbonate of Soda.
Then moisturise as normal.

Alternately
Mix:
¼ cup of olive oil
2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar
Then massage into feet and leave overnight.

To soften and whiten heels – cut a lemon in half (squeeze out any excess juice) and sprinkle with sugar. Place firmly on the heels for 5 minutes.

Over Exposure to the Sun
Again prevention is always the best treatment, ensure a good natural sun cream is applied, cover up at hottest periods.

Sun Burn
Always have a good natural after sun at hand – such as Lavera After Sun.

Home remedy
Aloe Vera Gel or Aloe Vera plant – cut of leaf and apply.
Or
Run a tepid bath and add a cup of apple cider vinegar (eases the stinging)
15 drops of lavender essential oil (helps repair sun damage)
1 tbsp of almond oil (helps moisturise the dry skin)

Skin Peeling
Exfoliate with a shower wash/body brush/towel – very important to moisturise with a body lotion or oil.

After Summer Beauty Treatment
Facial Mask – use a 5 minute natural elements mask to relieve dry skin & aid rejuvenation.

Home RemedyAvocado & Manuka Honey Mask
For normal skin types:
Mush the flesh of half an avocado, massage into face and neck.
Leave for 15-20 mins.
Rinse & moisturise

For Dry Skin:Add 1 tbsp Manuka Honey to avocado mash – use on same day.
If you haven't got the time to make your home remedies or you want a treatment that is ready to use, then visit www.luycrose.biz

Hair Removal by Sugaring

Sugaring has been around since the days of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece but it's only recently that this form of hair removal has grown in popularity. If you're not familiar with the concept of sugaring, here's your essential guide for what to expect if you're interested in having a go yourself.

What is Sugaring?Sugaring isn't too dissimilar to waxing but uses a mixture of sugar, lemon and water rather than hot wax. You can use sugaring to remove hair on most areas of the body but it can be especially useful for removing hair along the bikini line (that could be too painful to remove through waxing) and fine facial hair. Generally speaking, if it involves an area of the body that is more than a bit sensitive, sugaring can be good alternative to the likes of waxing, and longer-lasting in comparison to shaving or hair removal creams.

The Advantages of Using Sugaring for Hair RemovalBecause sugaring uses different ingredients to waxing, it can have several plus points in its favour.

Here are some of the main benefits of sugaring:
Remove shorter hairs: With sugaring, you can tackle hairs that are just one-eighth of an inch so unlike waxing, you don't have to wait around for hairs to reach a certain length before you can remove them. This is one of the most attractive benefits of sugaring, as there is less re-growth between sugaring sessions.

Less painful: Whereas hot wax comes into contact with the skin as well as the hair that you're looking to remove, sugaring coats the hairs themselves so it's much less likely to make your eyes water.

Less irritation: As the sugar paste isn't heated to the same degree as hot wax, it's kinder to your skin if it does get on your skin. It's also more natural and doesn't contain chemicals so there's less chance of irritation or a bad reaction.
Less messy: The sugar paste is easily dissolved by water so it's not difficult to clean off once you're done.

How Difficult is Sugaring?The most challenging part of the sugaring process is creating the right mix between the sugar, lemon and water, especially in the early days. A typical sugaring paste uses:
1/4 cup of water
¼ cup of lemon juice
2 cups of white sugar

Mix these ingredients together and heat until the paste takes on a smooth and syrup-like consistency. You can do this more quickly in the microwave but because of the risk of overheating the sugar mixture, you may prefer to heat on the stove instead. Once you've achieved the desired result, leave to cool before you even think about starting the sugaring process. When it's time to apply the paste to your body, it's a good idea to heat it up slightly to make it easier to use.

How to Go About SugaringAs well as the ingredients to make the paste, you'll also need to have a spatula to apply it and some fine cotton or paper strips to hand for removal purposes. Make sure that the sugar paste is warm but not unbearably hot, as this will make it easier to spread without burning your skin. Spread the sugaring paste thinly in the direction of the hair growth, apply the cotton or paper strip over the top and pull off in the opposite direction to the hair growth.

What to Expect After SugaringThere will still be some degree of irritation and redness after sugaring, although it should be less in comparison to waxing. On average, this won't last for more than a few hours.

source: Sally Aquire -www.safecosmetics.co.uk

Check out Acorelle's fabulous natural hair removal products and ready to use sugar wax products.

Behind the Brand: L'Oreal

It is the biggest beauty company in the world and owns numerous ethical brands including The Body Shop and Pureology, but do its own ethics stand up to close scrutiny?

Peter Salisbury reports
In July this year, the UK advertising standards authority, the ASA, ruled that an ad for Maybelline’s ‘Eraser’ foundation was misleading. The Photoshopping of model Christie Turlington had given the impression that the make-up had a bigger transformative effect than it was really capable of. As a result, the ad won't be shown again in its current form in the UK. If ethical campaigners had their way then Maybelline’s parent company, French cosmetics giant L’Oréal, would also be banned but this time from shelves across the country. The reason? L’Oréal’s continued testing of some of its products on animals and because of criticisms made about Switzerland’s Nestlé, a 30 per cent shareholder in L’Oréal, over its marketing of baby formula in the developing world.

Both claims are complex and contested. They also present a major headache for consumers who pride themselves on their ethical principles because they raise a question that is likely to become increasingly important in coming years. If we disapprove of the ethics of major corporations, should we boycott all of their brands?

This is particularly difficult in the case of L’Oréal, the biggest cosmetics company in the world. Their brands include everything from high-street fixture The Body Shop to the 100 per cent vegan haircare brand Pureology by way of ‘natural’ supermarket staple Garnier. The company also holds the license to make perfumes and cosmetics for high-end brands, including Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren and Diesel. Quitting your L’Oréal habit could be harder than you thought. How strong, though is the case against the company?

L’Oréal’s most outspoken critic is UK animal welfare campaigner Naturewatch, which since 2006 has called for a boycott of all L’Oréal products including those sold by The Body Shop. The company still uses animal testing extensively, Naturewatch claims, despite assertions that it has not tested any of its finished products on animals since 1989.

The devil, as they say is in the details. In 2009, L’Oréal published a report on its sustainable practices, which repeated the claim that it does not test finished products on animals. The problem is that as one of the world’s biggest cosmetics firms, much of its work is in the development of new ingredients for its products, and it is here that Naturewatch’s problems arise. EU legislation actually demands that all new cosmetic ingredients be tested on animals, although from 2009 onwards it has been working with cosmetics firms to eradicate the use of animal testing by 2013.

‘L’Oréal has not used animals to test its finished products since 1989, except in the case where national legislation requires it,’ the cosmetics giant said in its sustainability report. ‘This is the case in certain countries where L’Oréal operates and in those locations regulations require testing using animals before substances can be registered for commercial use. As L’Oréal operates on an international scale, it is obliged to comply with the current national legislation for products that are manufactured locally and sold locally.’


L’Oréal argues that it is a world leader in researching alternatives to animal testing, including the development of artificial tissue on which it has spent €600m to date It is also a founder member of the European Partnership for Alternatives to Animal Testing and closely involved in the international Tox Cast initiative which is run by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Rather than a cruel advocate of animal testing, it says, it is in fact fully engaged in attempting to make the practice obsolete.

The owner of one ethical skincare firm told the Ecologist that companies like L’Oréal do face a tough set of choices; either innovate in order to maintain their market share, or use existing ingredients and allow less ethical competitors to launch new products, or continue developing within the limits of regional legislation. Smaller producers can simply find green or ethical ways to produce established ingredients. Few ethical firms could afford to pay for the necessary research on artificial tissues that L’Oréal has done, he adds - at current exchange rates, €600m is not far off the £652m it paid for The Body Shop in 2007.

Meanwhile, the Nestlé issue also remains hotly disputed. In 1977, the company was accused of using its marketing campaigns in developing countries to promote the idea that its baby formula was better for infants than breast milk. Since then, a series of campaigns have been run to highlight the company’s practices abroad, particularly by the International Baby Food Action Network [IBFAN], which continues to call for a boycott of Nestlé’s products worldwide. In May 2011, IBFAN claimed that Nestlé had broken 130 rules set down by the World Health Organisation for the promotion of infant formulas in the developing world.

For its part, Nestlé says that it does not question the fact that breastfeeding is the best start a baby can have in life, and claims to work hard to meet the WHO’s rigorous standards. In corporate literature it describes its baby food as being part of a process of ‘complementary feeding,’ which is crucial to babies’ development. It also claims to distribute educational material to healthcare professionals in the developing world advocating breastfeeding, although as the IFBAN points out, it also advertises its formulas to these professionals using similar language.

Working out where you stand on these criticisms is down to individual ethics, and they are both complex and contentious issues and among a number that have been levelled at both firms. In Nestlé’s case in particular, the company has certainly acted in an ethically suspect manner in the past, while L’Oréal itself, through choice or not, is certainly spending big to quit its animal testing habit.

If you do decide that L’Oréal and Nestlé are acting in an unethical manner then the next big question is: should brands like The Body Shop or Pureology be punished for the sins of the parent company?

The founders of both firms have strong ethical principles, and sold their companies so that their message could reach a wider market, making it a tough choice in both cases.  Buying their products may line the pockets of their L’Oréal and Nestlé paymasters, but by buying from The Body Shop, which does not test any of its products on animals, or vegan Pureology, you could also be sending a message to the guys at the top: more of the good ethical products, less of the morally questionable.

Given that many big corporations are now spending more and more on big, ethical brands - Coca Cola, for example, now owns the UK’s Innocent, while another US giant, Kraft, has Green and Blacks chocolate - this is a problem which is unlikely to go away for the ethical consumer any time soon.

So who owns what? The L’Oréal brands

Consumer brandsL'Oréal Paris
Garnier
Maybelline New York
Softsheen.Carson
CCB Paris  
Vichy
La Roche Posay
Innéov
Skinceuticals
Sanoflore
Roger&Gallet 

Professional brands
L'Oréal Professionnel
Kérastase
Redken
Matrix
Mizani
Pureology
Shu Uemura Art of Hair
Luxury brands
Lancôme 
Biotherm 
Helena Rubinstein
Kiehl's 
Shu Uemura 
Giorgio Armani 
Ralph Lauren
Cacharel
Viktor & Rolf
Diesel
YSL Beauté
Maison Martin Margiela

RetailersThe Body Shop

Source: Peter Salisbury, Ecologist, 10/8/11

If you want to buy products where neither the product or it's ingredients have been tested on animals - visit www.lucyrose.biz

New Instore - Pai Skincare

All of Pai Skin Care products are formulated with sensitive and allergy-prone skin in mind.

Carefully select ingredients with proven remedial and skin soothing properties keep Pai products free from irritating chemicals and alcohol.

If you have highly reactive or sensitive skin, then it is important to know exactly what is in your skin care products.

That's why all of Pai Skin Care products are certified organic by the Soil Association, so you can be reassured the products stand up to scrutiny.

You won't find "parfum" on any of the ingredient lists - a term that legally allows manufacturers to include up to 200 synthetic chemicals, including phthalates, in their products without declaring them on the label.

Pai was the first skin care company to list all ingredients in plain English, so you don't need a chemistry degree to understand what's in the bottle.
 
Unlike many brands on the market, which commission factories to both formulate and manufacture their products, they have their own in-house R&D lab and manufacturing facility.

That means each and every Pai Skincare product is unique and the result of their own hard work, dedicated research and rigorous testing.

Shop now for Pai Skin Care and take advantage of our fabulous launch offer.