Campaign for Safe Cosmetics co-founder Stacy Malkan, a self- described recovered-makeup-addict-turned-activist, treats cosmetics as an environmental issue.

With a trace of lipstick and mascara, Malkan warned yesterday of widespread toxic chemicals in beauty and personal-care products.

"Many are linked to cancer, hormone disruption, learning disabilities and other health problems," said the author of Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry.

The average person slathers on about 12 products a day containing 80 chemicals, she said.

"We are all putting these chemicals on our bodies every day - women, men, children;, it's something that we all know intimately. It's a way to personalize environmental issues," said Malkan, who is crusading to make such consumer products safer.

Malkan spoke to students at Westmount High School yesterday about how the cosmetics industry markets self-image with its products.

Malkan is to give the fifth annual Lanie Melamed Memorial Lecture organized by Breast Cancer Action Montreal, an organization that works from the premise that breast cancer "doesn't have to happen."

Malkan's book covers the five-year campaign by CSC, a coalition of environmental and health groups that are pressuring the U.S. cosmetics industry - worth an estimated $50 billion a year - to use safer ingredients.

Many of the products on the market claim to be pure, gentle, clean, natural and hypo-allergenic, but the book reveals the results of laboratory analysis showing many contain harmful ingredients that are not listed on the labels.

For example, there is lead in some lipsticks. Lead is a known neurotoxin. The CSC recently released results of baby shampoos tests. Many, including Johnson's Baby Shampoo, contain formaldehyde and dioxane.

In his Gazette chemistry column last week, Joe Schwarcz dismissed news reports of "baby products tainted with cancer causing chemicals" as much ado about nothing much.

But Malkan countered that companies are not studying the impact of repeated low dose exposure.

"Baby shampoo does not need to be one more source of toxic exposure," she said. "Why would you want to pour a carcinogen on your baby's head?"

For brand-by-brand comparisons of more than 40,000 products using research from government and independent studies, go to Skin Deep www.cosmeticdatabase.com.

For more information, visit www.NotJustaPrettyFace.org or www.SafeCosmetics.org