Let’s talk about sex…”green” sex. More specifically, let’s talk about the birds of an artificial feather and the bees with a battery-operated buzz. That’s right – sex toys, lubes, goos and whatever else we use to enhance our adventures in the bedroom, with or without a playmate. These toys, however, don’t come with the warning labels and regulations that children’s toys normally come with. So, unless you’ve done you research, we don’t really know what we’re putting in our…well, you know.

In uncovering what’s used to make those toys made for playing with under the covers, we find the usual suspects – PVC, phthalates, and parabens – giving “getting dirty” a new meaning. Not surprisingly and rather unfortunately, the cheapest and most ubiquitous toys and products are the most harmful. The squishy, jelly-like (and frankly frighteningly life-like) kinds, i.e. jelly rubbers and “cyberskin” toys, are made with PVC and phthalates. Aside from the toxins they put into the waste stream, they leach toxins into your blood stream, which scientists suspect are a cause of cancer and reproductive system damage (I smell irony). Additionally, many lubricants contain petroleum derivatives (read: flammable fossil fuel) and parabens – those hormone-mimicking chemicals that have been found in breast cancer tumors and may be a contributor thereof. There’s nothing like a global warming-inducing or carcinogenic sex toy to kill the mood. More...

Standards for beauty products in the US are significantly lower than European standards resulting in potentially harmful substances making their way into products. The Oakland-based Environmental Working Group publishes a report called Skin Deep and has a database to search for your products at cosmeticsdatabase.org. More...

Your skin is your largest organ, so it makes sense to only put organic ingredients on your body as well as in it. Many major brands contain harmful chemicals that are unregulated in the US. More...