The skin care and anti aging industry is a huge industry, making massive amounts of money, and with some very successful companies involved. You'd assume that skin care products would be totally safe, and extremely effective wouldn't you? But are skin care products totally safe and extremely effective?

Well there's certainly some doubt about their effectiveness, but today I'm going to talk about safety.

You know the products I mean I'm sure. Mainstream skincare products that you see on the shelves every day. Anti aging products that are advertised to you on the television. Household names made by companies with high profiles. The first products you think about when you think anti aging or skincare, or even just simple things like moisturizers and face creams.

Here's a few things that may surprise you. Did you know that the cosmetics and anti aging and skin care industry in the US is unregulated by the FDA or the US government in any way? That the skin care companies can put anything into their skin care products and cosmetics without it being tested for safety and established as safe for human consumption before they use it?

Here's a quote from the Cosmetic Safety Database website:

"Due to gaping loopholes in federal law, companies can put virtually any ingredient into personal care products. Even worse, the government does not require pre-market safety tests for any of them."

Does it worry you that cosmetics companies can put anything they like into their products without first establishing that they are safe?

Do you believe that these companies have sufficient ethics and moral fiber to use only ingredients in their facial cosmetics and anti aging products that are proven safe? Are there examples from history of companies putting profits before the safety of their customers?

What about the tobacco companies for example? Haven't they spent years selling a product that is known to be deadly, and even tried to make out that it was safe when research showed clearly that tobacco was dangerous, purely because there was a lot of money to be made? And they are still doing it.

So do you really think that if a cosmetics company can make lots of money by putting a dangerous, or even suspect, ingredient into their cosmetics that they would do it?

Would it surprise you to know that some of the ingredients found in some common cosmetics and facial products like facial cleansers and moisturizers and anti aging products are suspected of causing cancer and at least one is listed by the State of California as a chemical known to cause cancer?

Would it surprise you that there is lead and/or mercury in some of your skin care products and cosmetics?

I have written about some of the specific chemicals in my squidoo lens, if you're interested to find out more about just a few of the nasty ingredients of some of our common skin care products and cosmetics. There's lots.

So, in conclusion, what do you think now? Should you worry about your skin care products? And are there skin care products that are safe, and effective?

Yes there are, but not from a company that you would have even heard of before.