Discount Code One time Use Make it Count

Use coupon code new01 at CHECKOUT to receive 10% entire order at www.desertmoonbathnbody.etsy.com
All orders arrive ready for gift giving; wrapped and packaged with loving care!

Monkey Farts is done curing and ready to ship...What a great gag gift, co workers, or family. Super conditioning bar of soap with loads of lather.

Cold Processed Peacock Soap Swirl

Learn to make fancy soap swirl "Peacock". Bars will be ready for sale soon at www.desertmoonbathnbody.com. Great Holiday Gift! We would love to hear your comments!

Cafe Expresso Handmade Soap

Cafe Espresso Handmade Cold Processed Soap on Salt $3.75 per bar see at www.desertmoonbathnbody.com/catalog.php?item=132

Oatmeal Milk and Honey, loaded with moisture rich oils and body butters. On the curing rack and will be ready to ship soon!

Cold Process Soap Pink Lavender Unmolding & Soap Planer Ideas

Making Marbling or Swirling Comb for Cold Process Soap Peacock Swirl

Cold Process Soap Swirl Bouquet Peacock

Your comments are welcome. Please let us know how you like our Blog and any special requests. Thanks for viewing.

October is breast cancer awareness month. This month, thousands of people will participate in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer because they have been touched by the disease and want to do something about it. Although the Avon Walk website claims that Avon is “in it to end it,” the company uses chemicals linked to breast cancer and other diseases in its products—chemicals like parabens, triclosan and formaldehyde-releasing preservatives. Help us tell Avon if it wants to be “in it to end it,” it needs to stop using chemicals linked to cancer and other diseases in products women use on our bodies every day.

When one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, we agree that it's important to draw attention to this devastating disease. But for us that means walking the walk, getting rid of toxic chemicals linked to breast cancer, and urging companies to think in terms of prevention. In August, we challenged Avon to meet or beat Johnson & Johnson’s commitment to getting cancer-causing chemicals out of its products. Despite thousands of you writing to Avon, the company has yet to make this commitment. Join us in asking Avon to stop using chemicals linked to cancer in its products. That's the kind of commitment that will truly make Avon “the company for women” that it claims to be. Thanks for all you do, Sarada, Darylle, Janet, Cindy, Jamie, Nneka, Shannon and all of us at the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics P.S. Want some tips on preventing breast cancer? Check out these Prevention Is Power tips from our co-founder, the Breast Cancer Fund.

New Batches Curing Hand Made, Hand Poured, and Hand Cut

Several batches of delicious natural soap is curing and will be ready soon for sale. Includes Spell of Love, Eucalyptus Peppermint Blast, Oatmeal Milk and Honey, Lovely Lavender, Seductive Woods, Blue Cherry Blossom Swirl, Chocolate Vanilla Orange Delight, and more. All with beautiful soap art. Check our online stores soon. Each bar is loaded with high quality oils with Shea and Mango Butters for super lather and moisture rich. You have not used real soap until you have tried handmade cold processed soap!

Poured new batch of soap (picture of soap in mold)will be ready for sale the end of October. Dream Catcher Swirl with Cherry Blossom Dreams Fragrance. Visit www.desertmoonbathnbody to get a bar before they are gone. Tweet me to save a bar through pre order.

FDA warns of skin creams, lotions tainted with mercury by Michael Finney, ABC 7 May 16th, 2012

Concern about the safety of cosmetics and the amount of chemicals in them is growing in Congress. This follows a warning by the Food & Drug Administration about dangerous levels of mercury found in some anti-aging skin lightening creams, lotions and soaps from foreign countries. In the past few years, state and federal investigators have turned up 35 skin products containing mercury. And just two years ago, an Alameda County woman and other members of her family, including a 4-year-old boy, all tested high for mercury after using a tainted product. "These items may work well, but they give you beauty at a tremendous cost," says Gordon Vrdoljak, a research scientist at the California Department of Public Health. A team of investigators at the department recently launched a one-year study to determine the extent of the problem. "It's a concern. You really only want to have minimal amounts of mercury in your system, like maybe a part per billion. That's one part in a billion. And this has got about 4 percent mercury." The FDA says mercury can cause damage to the kidneys and nervous system and even interfere with the development of the brain in the unborn and in young children. Children can become contaminated just by touching a parent or even a countertop exposed to mercury. "Mercury can also vaporize or get into the air from mercury containing skin creams and the child may breathe the mercury in the air, and finally mercury can get into dust or food," says Dr. Rupali Das with the California Department of Public Health. She says state investigators are currently testing for mercury and other chemicals in cosmetics purchased throughout California sold at ethnic markets and swap meets. "In our experience, the skin care products that contain mercury have all been imported in some way." Sometimes it comes in by way of personal luggage. Other times it's trucked or flown in for sale at the store. "As a consumer, I definitely want to avoid any skin creams that contain mercury or any variation of mercury, skin creams that don't have any labels, or labels aren't available in English," says Stacy Malkan, co-founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. "Or if the label doesn't contain ingredients, it's best not to use the product," said Das. We found a skin cream matching that description and two other products whose labels were primarily in a foreign language. We sent all three products to a certified lab and all three tested for trace amounts of mercury, but less than the one part per million allowed by the FDA. Results from the more in-depth state study won't be known for another year. "There is [sic] always questions, and then I would say there's probably a handful of ingredients in cosmetics that issues have been raised about," says John Hurson, vice president of the Personal Care Products Council, an industry trade group. Some of those ingredients include the known carcinogen formaldehyde in some shampoo, lead in lipstick, and toluene in nail polish which is suspected of causing headaches. Europe has banned 1,200 chemicals; the United States only 10. "If they aren't safe for use, they shouldn't be in the product," says Hurson. "We need to update the 1938 cosmetics laws and give the FDA real authority to oversee this $60 billion dollar industry," says Malkan. How far any new regulation should go is a subject of controversy. The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics supports phasing out chemicals that cause cancer and reproductive harm and full disclosure of ingredients. But the trade group calls that overreaching, and supports legislation calling for greater oversight and review of products. This information was posted from the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.

How to Make Body Cream all Natural

Avon, Mary Kay, and Estée Lauder Are Paying for Tests on Animals

Why? After two decades of promoting their "no animal testing" policies, Avon, Estée Lauder, and Mary Kay have quietly resumed paying for cruel tests on animals—without letting consumers know! We have confirmed with each company that chemicals are being dripped into rabbits' eyes and that substances are being rubbed onto animals' skin because of requirements of the Chinese government in order to market products in that country.

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Click here to let Avon, Estée Lauder, and Mary Kay know that you won't buy their products until they are 100 percent cruelty-free once again. Fortunately for animals, you can still choose from more than 1,000 companies in peta2's online searchable database of cosmetics and personal-care companies that don't harm animals at home or overseas.

Thanks for taking action!

For all animals,

Rachel Owen
Rachel Owen
Assistant Manager of Youth Campaigns
peta2
RachelO@peta2.com
Add peta2 on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

Get the Lead out of Lipstick; Are your kids wearing your lipstick? L'Oreal is the worst offender

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics first broke the story about lead in lipstick back in 2007 with our report “A Poison Kiss.” Now, a new report by FDA indicates that the problem of poison kisses is worse than we thought!
FDA’s new study found lead in 400 lipsticks tested, with higher lead levels than ever reported in some of the most popular brands. The worst offender was L'Oreal USA, whose Maybelline Color Sensation and L’Oreal Color Riche lipsticks were #1 and #2 on the list. In fact, L'Oreal USA makes five of the 10 most contaminated brands in the FDA study.
Take action now: Tell L’Oreal the company owes women a huge apology and a commitment to make lipstick without lead.
It’s more important now than ever to call attention to this problem. A brand-new report for the US Centers for Disease Control states that there is no safe level of lead exposure for children. That means we must protect women from lead exposure, since lead builds up in the body over time and easily crosses the placenta, where it can interfere with normal development of a fetus and cause irreversible health effects.
How many millions of women have applied and reapplied lead-laden L’Oreal lipsticks since we first asked the company to take action in 2007? How many kids have played with their mom's lipstick? It is high time that L’Oreal—the worst offender four years ago and right now according to this most recent FDA testing — Get the Lead Out of Lipstick!
Sincerely,
Janet, Darylle, Cindy, Stacy, Heather, Jamie and all of us at the Campaign
PS: Here is the link to the FDA’s list of 400 lead-containing lipsticks.
Visit the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics to take action

Comments PLEASE

Our blog is lonely for comments. PLEASE leave a comment even if it is to just say you dropped by, what you think about our articles, videos, and more. We welcome your comments please.

Thanks,
Robin from Desert Moon Bath & Body

How to Make Cold Process Soap Naturally

Busy Making Soap; Chemical Free! Take a Peak, Nice Music too.

Pink Ribbon Cosmetics; How Safe are They? You Decide!

Pink Ribbon Cosmetics; Think before You Pink

Pinkwashing: A term used to describe companies that position themselves as leaders in the fight against breast cancer while engaging in practices that may be contributing to rising rates of the disease.

We’ve all seen the beauty products dressed up with pink ribbons and cute promotions. Unfortunately, many of these same corporations continue to use chemicals that are linked to cancer.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has repeatedly asked Avon, Revlon and Estee Lauder – the three largest users of the pink ribbon in the cosmetics industry – to sign the Compact for Safe Cosmetics, a pledge to remove chemicals linked to cancer, birth defects, learning disabilities and other harmful health impacts from their products.  The companies have been unwilling to make this public commitment to eliminate carcinogens and other chemicals of concern from their products.

If they are serious about being champions for women's health, the pink-ribbon ringleaders must stop buying carcinogens and other harmful chemicals from the chemical companies. You can ask one of these manufacturers, Estee Lauder, to do just that right now.
Cosmetics Chemicals and Breast Cancer

When only 1 in 10 cases of breast cancer are linked to family history, when so many more women are diagnosed today than even 20 years ago, and when science implicates our environment in rising rates of the disease, we have to ask hard questions about the toxic chemicals we’re exposed to daily. In cosmetics alone – with and without the pink ribbon – we find:

Parabens: preservatives used in lotions, shampoo and other cosmetics. Some parabens are classified as endocrine disruptors because they mimic estrogen in the body. Higher estrogen exposures are linked to higher risk of breast cancer.

Phthalates: plasticizers found in nail polish, synthetic fragrance and plastic packaging. These hormone-disrupting chemicals have been linked to early puberty in girls, a risk factor for later-life breast cancer. Some phthalates also act as weak estrogens in cell culture systems.

Fragrance: secret mixtures of chemicals used in both perfumes and scented cosmetics. "Fragrance" may include phthalates, synthetic musks (which may disrupt hormones) and ethylene oxide (a mammary carcinogen). The companies are not required to list these chemicals on product labels.

Nonylphenols: used in some cleansers. They have been shown to disrupt hormones.

Sunscreen chemicals: some behave like estrogens and have been shown to make some breast cancer cells proliferate.

Isobutane: a propellant used in spray-on hair spray, gel, mousse, shaving cream and anti-fungal treatment. It can be contaminated with 1,3-butadiene, a probable human carcinogen and a mammary carcinogen.

Ethoxylated compounds: dimethicone, PEG-40, ceteareth-12 and other compounds with the syllables “eth” or “PEG” in them are used in a wide variety of cosmetics. These compounds are formed by processing with ethylene oxide, a mammary carcinogen, and can be contaminated with 1,4-dioxane, also a mammary carcinogen.

Metals: found in a variety of cosmetics as colorants, sunscreens or contaminants. Iron, nickel, chromium, zinc, cadmium, mercury and lead have been found in higher levels in women with breast cancer than in women without breast cancer. Nickel, chromium, cadmium, mercury, lead, copper, cobalt and tin also have estrogenic effects on breast cancer cells in the lab.

Petrolatum: a derivative of petroleum used in lip products and lotions. It can be contaminated with polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are both endocrine disruptors and carcinogens.

Toluene: used in some nail products. Can be contaminated with benzene, a known carcinogen.

Triclosan: commonly used in anti-microbial soaps. More research is needed to understand how triclosan relates to breast cancer, but evidence suggests it affects male and female hormones as well as thyroid hormone, which effects weight and metabolism.


Take Action

Four things you can do to thwart cosmetics pinkwashing:

Ask Procter & Gamble to really do something about breast cancer.
Ask Estee Lauder to stop buying chemicals linked to cancer.

Support the Safe Cosmetics Act, which will eliminate carcinogens from personal care products and require companies to be fully transparent about what's in their products.

Get tips for choosing safe cosmetics from the Breast Cancer Fund.
Check out Breast Cancer Action's Think Before You Pink campaign.