The Green Beauty Guide: Your Essential Resource to Organic and Natural Skin Care, Hair Care, Makeup, and Fragrances Book

A useful book, but a little didactic. I agree with the author's contention that we surround ourselves with way too many potentially harmful chemicals in all our personal care products and cutting down on them seems like common sense, but the tone of this book-- that everything on your bathroom counter is basically plotting to give you a cancerous tumor-- is a bit extreme.

For example, at one point Gabriel contends that it's important to use all-natural toothpaste because the average person swallows the equivalent of a tube of toothpaste a year, and that just sounds ridiculous to me. Sure, I swallow some toothpaste residue here and there, that stands to reason, but an entire tube? Really? I barely use an entire tube in a year.

Personally, I think you have to pick your battles; going all-natural for the ingredients in moisturizer, which seeps into my skin, seems wise. For some other products, having some chemicals in there for germ-killing effectiveness might not be such a bad idea. After all, as a doctor friend of mine likes to say, "There's nothing more natural than dying."

That criticism aside, if you're looking for information about what products are safer to use on your skin and hair, this book does the job. I admit that I'm not going to photocopy the list of 100 harmful cosmetic ingredients and carry it with me everywhere I go, but just seeing what brands of organic products get the Green Beauty Guide seal of approval as "real" organic products (as opposed to those that just use the word organic as a marketing ploy) is helpful.

The many recipes for making your own beauty products look intriguing, but I know that I will never, ever end up using them. If you're the kind of person who likes to experiment with your own homemade potions though, this book could be incredibly valuable for you. For me it was just a "what stuff to buy and what stuff to avoid" guide, which is fine.