Lead in lipstick? 1,4 dioxane in baby shampoo? How is this possible? Simple. The $50 billion cosmetics industry is so powerful they’ve kept themselves unregulated for decades. Stacy Malkan’s award-winning new book, Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry (New Society Publishers, Oct. 2007), follows a group of environmental activists as they knock on the door of the world’s largest cosmetics companies to ask some tough questions:

• Why do companies market themselves as pink ribbon leaders in the fight against breast cancer, yet use chemicals that may contribute to that very disease?

• Why do products used daily by men and women of childbearing age contain chemicals linked to reproductive harm and infertility?

As doors slammed in their faces, the beauty myth peeled away and the industry’s toxic secrets began to emerge. The good news is that while the multinational corporations fight for their right to use hazardous chemicals, activists, scientists and business owners are giving the beauty industry a makeover!

About the Author

Stacy Malkan is communications director of Health Care Without Harm and a media strategist for the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a national coalition working to eliminate hazardous chemicals from personal care products. Her book offers an insider’s view of the five-year campaign by environmental and health groups to pressure the US cosmetics industry to use safer ingredients. Stacy is a former journalist and newspaper publisher, who works as a leading media strategist for national and international environmental health campaigns. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

To order books online:www.newsociety.com/bookid/3966

“This is a gripping, personal book by a recovered cosmetics addict with a great factual range on the impact of an unregulated group of companies.” Ralph Nader, consumer advocate

“A must-read for everyone! Thank you, Stacy, for this most important investigation into the hidden dangers of everyday personal care.” Horst Rechelbacher, founder/former owner of Aveda
More reviewer comments here

Recent press: Green Hero of the Month
San Francisco Chronicle: “Activist, Author Challenges Cosmetics Industry”
San Francisco Chronicle: “Makeup for Teens Getting a Green Makeover”
Minneapolis Star Tribune: “The Ugly Side of Beauty Products”
Washington Post: “Can Beauty be Dangerous?”
Washington Post’s Sprig.com profile of Stacy Malkan
Grist.com interview
Alternet interview with Stacy Malkan