EWG has developed two consumer tools to protect the public from potentially hazardous ingredients. The Skin Deep® cosmetics database, available on the EWG website, lets shoppers search for products to see how they rate for safety. Launched about a year ago, the EWG Verified™ Program takes this effort one step further by placing the EWG Verified mark on products deemed safe. So far, the mark appears on 833 products and 52 brands, with others in the pipeline to be verified.
What we really need is greater transparency—and that is exactly what small, local businesses like Limegreen and Savor Beauty are so well-equipped to provide. On a given day, customers can walk into Savor Beauty in Saugerties and watch an employee whip up a sugar scrub in the beauty kitchen. Limegreen, located on Spring Street in Newburgh, has open studio days when you can drop by and purchase products directly from their makers, Lamb and Davis. It's not exactly life on Grandma's farm, but the DIY environs have a similar feel—and a purity that the owners are determined to preserve. "Our daughter has always been strapped to one of our hips while we're making a balm or pouring a candle," says Lamb. "She knows nothing else besides this."
