What's lurking in your bathroom?

You wake up groggy from a late night of cramming and head for the bathroom.

Your morning routine starts with washing and conditioning your hair, scrubbing yourself down, cleaning your face and brushing your teeth. Then you start applying the array of products you need to get through the day: deodorant, moisturizer, hair care products. For the ladies, a slathering of mascara, eye shadow, lip gloss and whatever else is in your cosmetics bag. Before you have left the bathroom, you have likely exposed yourself to over 100 chemicals.

All this comes without a thought of what is going into your skin, or where it ends up once it's down the drain. The Environmental Working Group has established the Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database (www.cosmeticsdatabase.com) to give some insight. This site uses over 50 toxicity and regulatory databases to rate thousands of products and ingredients used in cosmetics.

Type your product in the search engine and it will give you a complete report of known hazards of the product. This includes environmental damage, carcinogenic potential, neurotoxicity, immunotoxicity, hormone disrupting ability, allergies, or anything else they know. However, even if your product has a low hazard rating, there is a possibility that the ingredients haven't been thoroughly tested to determine the effects they may have.

How do you reduce your daily chemical bath?

Using less is always a good start. Also, keep an eye on the ingredients list on the packaging. Look for products that use plant-based or natural ingredients. These products can be found in local health stores, or may be combined with sections at your regular retailer. Know what you are putting on your body and into public water systems.

Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.