Happy New Year?

It's been a quiet 2015 so far here at SMACK! My household is being ravaged by the throws. SO unpleasant. But when else do I get to spend 10+ uninterrupted hours on the couch with my laptop? BTW, thank you, Electrolux, for the sanitize setting on the washing machine. It's getting a workout.

So really all I'm good for today is to let you know that I will be moving SMACK! to another hosting service. Don't know when, but you'll be the first to find out.

In the meantime, if anyone needs me I'll be curled up in a fetal position sucking on ice chips.

Yours,
Jazzy

The PR game, according to Revlon

EWG was sounding the horn yesterday that Revlon is bending under consumer and activist pressure to remove certain yuckiness from its products (but only some). Read EWG's press release here.

It's pretty big news, no? Like, huge global cosmetics brand is finally getting with the times and cleaning up their act...

Except that Revlon doesn't seem to care as much as the rest of us. EWG's press release includes a link to this page -- basically a corporate ingredients directory, which was most likely produced to deflect heat about the toxic goop we're applying to our faces -- in reference to the Revlon's announcement. But there's no actual announcement...

Nothing under Investor Relations, where all of Revlon's corporate-level press releases live. Nothing picked up just yet by any news outlets, Internet or otherwise. So is Revlon even considering this news-worthy?

If actions speak louder than words, the presence of this line from the Revlon Ingredients page says it all:

"Note, that some of these ingredients have been sensationalized by reports in the press or on the internet as having potential safety concerns. "

Sensationalized. As in, you tree-hugger consumer activist folks are blowing things out of proportion. Stop making things up. Stop pretending that your cancer is anyone else's fault besides your own (I actually read some bonehead comment on FB the other day that cancer patients obviously have bad genes. Major face palm).

Here's another reason why I don't get the sense that playing nice with the likes of EWG is a priority for Revlon. It's holiday season. Year-end. Is anyone even doing any actual work at work still? Unless you're Stephen Colbert or the makers of Serial, this is probably the slowest news week of the year. That is, until next week.

So there is no news going anywhere about anything right now. If Revlon gave two hoots about announcing plans to eliminate some toxic ingredients, don't you think they'd do it in a way that maximizes the end benefit to the company?

EWG had to have gotten permission to issue its own release about Revlon, and I'm guessing the only way it happened was for Revlon to dictate the terms. Like, we're not highlighting this ourselves. No quotes or interviews. No nothing about anything. Never happened.

This of course is complete speculation. But a company as big as Revlon does nothing that's not deliberate, carefully thought out. And if this is their PR game, it could use a little pick-me-up.

Yours in health,
Jazzy

Glow in the dark baby

Hey! I had a post all lined up but didn't finish it so here we are...I was feeling a bit of a sellout last week.  I had the good fortune of attending a huge conference where, among other things, a big local pharmaceutical company was promoting its work. Come visit the booth and see our shtick and get free museum passes.

I do love free things. It's a diehard habit of growing up in a family that leaned heavily in the have-not direction. Anyway, I did what I was told and went to the booth and listened to the nice promo girl tell me all about the new alcoholic blend beverage this company was making using its very own pigments. Here, shake the bottle and watch the pixie dust swirl around.

Wait, what?

I hit the brakes hard. Pigments? Yes, pigments. Made by our chemicals division. In a beverage. That you drink.

I proceeded to ask what seemed to be the only obvious follow-up questions. What IS this metallic sparkly stuff, and how do I know it's safe? What else do these pigments go into?

I wasn't surprised by the very corporate answer I got in return. It's all tested, in our labs. The pigments go into a lot of things, like nail polish and car paint and all sorts of stuff.

By now I'm backing away slowly, looking around to see if anyone else has noticed how wack this whole thing is. Like, COMPLETELY WACK. This is a pharmaceutical company, serving the life sciences industry, that has as one of its missions to treat infertility. Seriously,  opposite this display of toxic glittery winestuff was a photo display about the 'beauty of pregnancy' that every woman deserves to experience. How's that for a co-winky-dink?

I got my free museum passes and hightailed it out of there. And I'm still a little in shock. I mean, it's like the left hand is creating the very problem the right hand is out to solve.

Money talks in this world. That's the only clear point in a scenario where a life-sciences company is putting out products containing very probably toxic ingredients.

I know it's the holidays, but please, whatever you drink this season, DON'T DRINK THE GLITTER.

Yours,
Jazzy

The other side

How was your Thanksgiving? I'm still putting my house back together, with generous breaks here and there to savor the last of the amazing chocolate pecan something-who-the-hell-cares-what-its-called-just-give-it-here-so-I-can-inhale-it that my sister-in-law made.

For some of you, it's Shave Day. All that sh*t that's been growing on your faces (maybe your legs? stranger things have happened) for all of November, it came off today.  So in honor of all your hairiness, I'm reviewing the Alba Botanica Shave Cream that I mentioned in a post about this time last month. Seems right.

Product reviews are by far the favorite thing here, which is great. I love trying new things and I love telling folks how it is. 

Happy Monday,
Jazzy

Lovin' your oven

It's Thanksgiving crunch time. Who's with me? Come on, don't deny that you're running by a schedule of what needs to happen when, days and hours leading up to the big meal. If you're hosting, at some point or another your oven is going to need cleaning. Maybe you do it before the holiday so that each basting of the bird doesn't come with a fresh dose of embarrassment. Maybe you do it after the holiday to clean away the memory of that exploded pie or the awful glue that we once called green bean casserole.

Whenever you clean your oven, here's a great, chemical-free way to do it. Sure, a lot of ovens have that self-clean feature that basically chars all that sh*t away, but if you're not into babysitting a 700-degree range for 6 hours, this is for you.

It comes from Cha Ching Queen. GREAT name. I don't know where she got the idea, but it's killer. Very Hints from Heloise. My mother had a copy of that book and it was like a Bible for housework. Basically it goes like this:

-- Mix some vinegar and water in a spray bottle.
-- Spray down your funky oven
-- Throw in some baking soda. Toss to coat, as they say.
-- Spray down the whole thing again
-- Listen for the hiss, close the oven door, and gorge on BuzzFeed lists of cute animals while the acid-base reaction of the vinegar and baking soda do all the work.

Are you trying this? You totally should. But even if you don't, take a minute to think about how you do clean your oven. Maybe stop using those cans of toxic, corrosive cleaner, yah?  Do it for Heloise.

Best,
Jazzy

Phthalates have met their match!

Do you follow TED? There was a link in my FB feed last week about these two brilliant teenagers who in 2013 presented on bacteria that can break down plastics! Amazing. Watch here.

My favorite comment on the video is someone who wrote, "where are the trumpets?" Seriously, these girls deserve a LOT of attention for their findings and for the notion that we have the intelligence to put people into outer space, breed wolves into thousands of different versions of a different species, and see through sh*t with x-rays and ultrasound and infrared. But we can't figure out the plastic problem?

Poised and informed, these ladies could probably take their solution pretty far, reducing waste and even applying their science to recycling processes. Who else wants them to save the world? Who's supporting their work (besides their parents)? Isn't in time to stop whining about the damage we're doing to this planet -- and by extension, ourselves -- and take some real action?

In the meantime, phthalates can suck it.

Yours,
Jazzy

Mustache you a question...

Hey there! It's been a while. But things keep on keepin' on, don't they? It's mustache month, where we kick off a long winter by watching our friends and loved ones of the hairier gender grow some serious 'staches to raise awareness (and sometimes some money too!) for prostate cancer. So it's a natural that we'd take a look at shaving products.

Over at EWG's Skin Deep database, the results aren't surprising. The drugstore brands (Gillette, Skintimate, etc) score pretty poorly, as do products from greener brands such as Kiss My Face and Alba Botanica. The products with better scores are pretty obscure or high-end brands. I recently picked up a tube of the unscented Alba Botanica Very Emollient Cream Shave at Whole Foods, to the tune of $6.99, and the best I can do is a '3' from Skin Deep. Better than the 7s that Gillette's shave products are getting, but at more than three times the price!

GoodGuide has a lot of love for Dr. Bronner's Organic Shaving Gel, giving the top 5 spots in the category ranking to different versions of that product. It's worth comparing how the two databases rank products because they don't rank ingredients in the same ways. The Kiss My Face Moisture Shave is a good example; EWG doesn't like the retinyl acetate but GoodGuide lists it simply as 'vitamin A' with a low health concern. Which is it, folks?

So when your man is ready to shave off the dead animal on his upper lip, don't let him use something harsh and toxic on his skin. Hit up the databases, do your homework, and find a shaving cream that doesn't cause the cancer we're trying to avoid.

Hairlessly yours,
Jazzy