Beady little plastic doesn't make your skin smooth
By Trystan L. Bass Posted Fri Jul 18, 2008 7:52am PDT
Plastic is everywhere, but even my plastic-annoyed self didn't see it coming in an exfoliant. The Product Fiend blogger on Shine pointed out that some facial scrubs use teeny beads of polyethylene plastic to help clean out your pores. Eww!
She cites a Slate article with further details. One Australian researcher found that plastic fragments smaller than 1 millimeter are increasingly common in our oceans. In one British estuary, 85 percent of the plastic garbage was this "microplastic" debris. Sewage treatment systems can't filter it out, so this tiny plastic junk pollutes the watershed and can be ingested by marine life.
Those little beads may feel nice on your skin, but in the long run, they're not doing the planet any good. Besides, you can find plenty of cleansers that use natural stuff to scrub the dirt off your face.
Some of the eco-friendly brands have been around for ages, they don't cost any more than the plasticized versions, yet they won't clog up poor little fishy bodies when we're done with them.
Here are a few exfoliating products I found that contain plastic -- you should avoid:
Aveeno Skin Brightening Daily Scrub
Clean & Clear's line of scrubs
Dove Gentle Exfoliating Foaming Facial Cleanser
Neutrogena's line of scrubs
Noxzema's line of scrubs
Olay's line of scrubs
Phisoderm Nurturing Facial Polish
Look for "polyethylene" in the label's ingredient list. You can double-check on a site like drugstore.com, where it's often easier to read the full ingredient list. You might also question terms like "microbeads" or "microcrystals" that aren't explained.
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Read more: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/beauty/the-saga-of-the-plastic-exfoliating-bead-continues-191555/
http://www.slate.com/id/2193693/
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