If you're like most women, by the time you climb into bed at the end of the day, you've applied ‑- and removed ‑- anywhere from 12 to 25 beauty products. Even those of us who wear little makeup rely on shampoo, conditioner, body wash, styling products, deodorant and a bevy of moisturizers to keep us looking our best. But lately, reports linking cosmetics ingredients to cancer and birth defects are giving us pause every time we indulge in our favorite potions.

The Safe Cosmetics Campaign (SCC) has been exploring the health of our beauty regimens since its launch in 2002. Back then, environmental and public health groups tested beauty products for the presence of phthalates, a family of industrial chemicals linked to birth defects. What they found was surprising: Nearly 75 percent of the products tested positive. Eventually, after these chemicals were banned in Europe, most American companies agreed to remove two types of phthalates, DEHP and DBP, from cosmetics. However, DEP ‑- or diethyl phthalate ‑- is still a staple ingredient in many beauty products, despite its reported hazards.

"While the cosmetics industry maintains that the tiny bit found in any given product is harmless, growing awareness in the scientific arena is that these small doses add up and can have a large effect on our health," explains Stacy Malkan, director of communications for Health Care without Harm. The European Union's Cosmetics Directive, signed in 2004, requires products to be free of chemicals that "are known or strongly suspected of causing cancer or birth defects." And while legislation is pending in California and New York to help safeguard consumers from these chemicals, no protective federal policy is on the horizon.