Last week I wrote about the Colorado Safe Personal Care Products Act. If it had become law, it would have prohibited the sale of makeup, shampoo, and other products containing even trace amounts of certain toxins. But it didn’t become law, because on Monday it was voted down, mostly due to a lack of conclusive science to support it.

I think it’s important to know what’s in your personal care products. Of course my own product labels have all of those details, but my products’ ingredients are online, too. If you have allergies or skin sensitivities, you need to know what’s in products before you buy them. (And if you’re like me, you probably just like to look at labels before you buy things.) I don’t have anything to hide, and I think this blog has also been a great place to practice that transparency. I’ve talked about my ingredients here before, and about reformulations and how I sometimes reconsider ingredients and make changes. I do this for a lot of reasons, and I share them because I want you to know what goes into my products as well as how I make decisions about what goes into them.

Many small companies like my own started making products because they wanted an alternative to the products offered by the big companies. They might have had an allergy, or a skin condition, or a concern about ingredients that led them to look for other options. Legislation like the bills in Colorado and those proposed at the Federal level are an indication to me that lots of people are still concerned about what’s out there and looking for those options. But laws that put lots of small companies out of business will not create the new options we’re all looking for. Communicating about what we need or want in our products (and what we don’t want), as well as discussion without fearmongering, is a better place to start.

I’ve tried to be really transparent here about what I do and what I’m aiming for with my products. In the coming months I’m going to talk even more about what’s in my products and why those things are there. If you have any particular questions you’d like answered, please let me know. If you ever have a question, please call or email. I’m here to help!

Are you concerned about personal product safety? Do you feel that the products you use are safe? If so, what about them reassures you? If not, why do you think they aren’t? What would make them safer? Please share your thoughts!