Best of the East Bay 2007
Readers' Choice:
Earth-friendliest Products

April 2007

"Use an eye cream heavy on natural ingredients, especially one without parabens or phthalates, the two toxic chemicals most often included in skincare products. To avoid synthetic ingredients altogether, look to companies like GratefulBody who use only organic ingredients."

From "Who Screams For Eye Cream?"
by Holly Richmond

Sept. 27, 2006

"By the time women walk out the door in the morning, after slathering, spritzing or smearing themselves with toner, moisturizer, eye cream, foundation, blush, eye shadow, eyeliner, mascara, lipstick, gloss and perfume, they may have put enough chemicals onto their bodies to be hazardous to their health."

From "Looking Good Could Be Hazardous"
by Beth Greer
Read the Article Online

August 2006

"Shampoos, skin cleansers, moisturizers, cosmetics - they're bursting with flowers and spices and all things nice, or so they smell. But mainstream body care products aren't the 'herbalicious' concoctions their advertising suggests, and are packed with synthetic chemicals. Some people have become hypersensitive to ingredients in standard products and react with skin rashes, headaches, fatigue, nausea, or serious illness. Other people won't stand for the cruelty of testing synthetic ingredients on animals. And it's dawning on many people who choose organic foods and excellent nutrition that what we put on our bodies nourishes - or harms - not only our skin but our inner selves."

From "Body by Nature"
by Lorrie Klosterman
Read the Article Online

January 2007

"Our commitment to the organic, unadulterated way of life can get a little spotty when it starts interfering with our choice of beauty products. Many people, happy to drink organic soymilk until the cows come home, get surprisingly verklempt about perceived threats to their sophisticated high-tech wrinkle creams. All of a sudden, the urgency about synthetic chemicals dissolves into a puff of paraben-laden face powder.

Why the disconnect? Somehow, putting something on our skin seems less invasive than what goes in our mouths. But the chemicals used in the beauty industry have health and environmental consequences equally as staggering as the pesticides we abhor in our food. Some of the stuff in your typical shower gel, for example, takes 200 to 300 years to biodegrade once it washes down the drain.

By now, you've probably heard about the dangers of parabens - studies suggest they alter hormone function, increasing the risk of breast cancer and reproductive defects - but scads of other beauty ingredients may also pose health risks. We've named 10 of the worst offenders normally found in hair and skin care products, but they may be just the tip of the iceberg, because only 11 percent of the 10,500 ingredients the FDA has documented in products have been assessed for safety.

'We're up against an unregulated industry,' says Shannon Schroter, who started the Berkeley-based skincare company GratefulBody years ago as an alternative to the 'topical junk food' produced by other companies."

From "Beauty or Bust: Cosmetics - the good, the bad, and the ugly"
by Einav Keet

March/April 2006 :: View Article

February 2006 :: View Article

Spring 2006

"Consider skin - our largest organ of elimination and a permeable membrane capable of absorbing much it encounters. Now consider the $40 billion skin care industry, amassing an ever-growing arsenal of chemical ingredients exempt from safety testing or meaningful regulation. Eleven percent of the ingredients used in personal care products have been tested and approvedóby the cosmetic industry's own review panel. The remaining 89 percent of ingredients, close to 10,000 of them, have never been tested for safety. The average American woman's exposure adds up to 168 distinct ingredients applied to the skin every single day."

From "I've Got You Under My Skin"
by Gina Covina
Read the Article Online

November 2005

October 2005 :: View Article

"Channing Street dead-ends at a rock-strewn hump supporting the railroad line abutting Berkeley's Aquatic Park. This an unlikely place to find one the country's leading organic skin-care companies, but cross the threshold of the spacious GratefulBody warehouse and you enter a world filled with greenery and some of the most endearing nature-rooted apothecaries this side of Middle Earth."

From "Sometimes a Great Lotion"
by Gar Smith

October 2004

"A line called GratefulBody promises 100% purity, no synthetic ingredients and no genetically engineered or pesticide-laden botanicals. Their 30Plus Eye Cream is light and fresh, and smells like I imagine the air of Middle-earth's Rivendell would smell - a medicinal herb garden belonging to a race of immortal beings. This product certainly prevents some mental wrinkles, which I'm sure has an effect on the development of physical ones."

From "A Feast for the Eyes: Nothing says stress relief like these soothing potions"
by Hillary Johnson