Healthy Beauty: Your Guide to Ingredients to Avoid and Products You Can Trust

Anti-aging products are the fastest growing sector of the cosmetics industry as women and men are becoming rapidly more obsessed with looking and feeling young. Splashy ads and commercials are everywhere we turn, promising to keep our appearances fresh and our partners satisfied.

But do consumers really know what they're applying to their faces and bodies in their quests for youth and beauty? Do they know the health risks they're taking by simply applying lipstick, face moisturizer or deodorant? Toxic beauty products clutter the shelves at retail stores everywhere, and consumers don't know the avoidable risks they're taking by following a simple beauty regimen.

Written by Dr. Samuel S. Epstein, a founder and chairperson of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, Healthy Beauty gives the lowdown on salon safety, health risks hiding in everyday products, how we put our children in danger and more. Healthy Beauty will also educate you and your family on easily implemented solutions through the use of a variety of positive alternatives.

In Healthy Beauty, you will learn:

How beauty products can affect your children before they're born

The brutal carelessness producers use when creating products for women and children

The risks taken when you step into a salon

Toxins in men's products such as deodorant, cologne and aftershave

How to protect yourself and your family by reading labels and identifying potentially hazardous ingredients

Through the help of Dr. Epstein and Healthy Beauty, you can protect yourself from the possible long-term effects of a simple beauty product.

Samuel S. Epstein, MD, professor emeritus of environmental health at the University of Illinois, Chicago, has published 270 scientific articles and authored or coauthored 15 books.

Dr. Epstein has been a consultant to the U.S. Senate and is frequently invited to give congressional testimony. He has also consulted for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Labor.

He has appeared on national TV shows including ""60 Minutes,"" ""Face the Nation,"" ""Meet the Press,"" ""Good Morning America"" and the ""Today"" show, along with major documentaries, including the 2004 prize-winning ""The Corporation.""

Randall Fitzgerald is a journalist and the author of The Hundred Year Lie: How Food and Medicine Are Destroying Your Health. He lives in West Linn, Oregon.