Each day, women and girls use an average of twelve personal careproducts, according to a study by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. “Users of these products might assumethat somebody is watching to insure that potentially toxic ingredientsare kept away from intimate contact with their body,” Mark Schapirowrote in The Nation in December. “Theywould be wrong.”

Thanks to a longstanding loophole, the FDA neither monitors norregulates ingredients used in cosmetics, many of which contain knownor probable carcinogens[http://www.ewg.org/reports/skindeep/report/executive_summary.php].Yet, in the wake of mounting pressure from a coalition of publichealth and environmental groups, the American cosmetics industry isfinally cleaning up its act.

By Mother’s Day, 116 personal care product manufacturers had signedthe Compact for Safe Cosmetics–agreeing to meet the standards set by the European Union’s “Cosmetics Directive,” which bans ingredients that are known or stronglysuspected of causing cancer, genetic mutation or birth defects. Click here for a full list of companies that have agreed to comply.

“[We are] thrilled about the growing interest in this campaign,” says Janet Nudelman of the Breast Cancer Fund, one of the major groups behind the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, “These companies are setting an important precedent for the cosmetics industry by putting their reputations and their resources on the line to make truly safe cosmetics a reality for consumers.”

Unfortunately, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is still waiting on industry giants L’Oréal, Revlon, and Estée Lauder–who have agreed to parts, but not the entirety, of the pledge. We look forward to the day when these and all other cosmetics companies agree to make lethal lipstick a thing of the past.