Are you aware that most body care products and cosmetics--yes, shampoos and moisturizers and soaps and foundations and mascara and so on-- are made with petroleum-derived ingredients? Are you aware that it's been estimated we absorb roughly 60% of what we put on--and what gets on--our skin? Did you know that the Food and Drug Administration doesn't require safety testing of body care and cosmetic products before they go on sale? If you'd like to learn more, here are some resources:

• You can read an article titled "The Ugly Side of Cosmetics" from Co-op America's Real Money at http://www.coopamerica.org/pubs/realmoney/articles/cosmetics.cfm .
• You can go to the website of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics at http://www.safecosmetics.org to learn more and search for the names of the brands you currently use on a list of more than 200 companies that have signed their Compact for Safe Cosmetics. This compact requires them to pledge to phase 450 specific chemicals suspected of causing cancer, mutations, and/or birth defects out of their products.
• If you can't find the names of the products you buy on their list, you can research specific products and ingredients at the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep site, http://www.ewg.org/reports/skindeep/ .
• One nationally-available company I'm aware of that has very high standards for the ingredients of the products they sell is the ONE Group, online at http://www.onegrp.com/ . My one misgiving about them is their products are manufactured in Australia, so they've travelled thousands of miles by the time they get to your home.
• Another is Aubrey Organics, online at http://www.aubrey-organics.com/index.cfm ; their products are available in many healthier foods stores across the country.
• As noted above, more than 200 companies have signed the Compact for Safe Cosmetics, so the list of signees is another place to look for companies that have made a strong public commitment to producing products that are safe to use.

Did you know that production of gold, diamond, and other gem jewelry is often ecologically destructive and socially unjust, exploiting workers and fuelling conflict in the source countries? There are some alternatives, though, and Co-op America's Real Money explores them in these two articles:

• "Gold Loses Some Glitter" at http://www.coopamerica.org/pubs/realmoney/articles/gold.cfm .
• "Digging for Ethical Gems" at http://www.coopamerica.org/pubs/realmoney/articles/ethicalgems.cfm .