Reminder: Essential oils are "toxic chemicals"

Some essential oils can be effective in skincare. I especially like tea tree oil for acne spot treating (more here). But just because these substances seem more "natural" does not mean that they are gentler, safer, or less toxic than "unnatural" chemicals. The increasing use of essential oils recently has resulted in increasing household poisoning by essential oils. As this article points out:

Highly toxic essential oils include camphor, clove, lavender, eucalyptus, thyme, tea tree, and wintergreen oils, the researchers noted. Many essential oils can cause symptoms such as agitation, hallucinations and seizures. Symptoms may also include chemical burns, breathing problems, liver failure and brain swelling, among others. 

While there are hundreds of essential oils, "tea tree oil is commonly cited, and most of those cases are accidental ingestions by children," Loden said.

So store your essential oils securely, and don't assume that your products containing these ingredients will be non-toxic to your kids or pets.

Lime Crime given warning by FDA for selling adulterated product (Velvetine in Red Velvet)

If you are using this product, you might want to stop (in case all of the other issues with Lime Crime haven't already deterred you). Here's the FDA warning letter. They seem to be using ingredients in the product that are not considered safe for use on the lips (ferric ferrocyanide and ultramarines). Apparently the ingredients list on their website no longer includes these two substances, so the other possibility is that they were mislabeling things, which is also not great.

I'm deep in packing and moving mode this week (and I also have to fit in a quick trip across the border to Toronto for a symposium in the midst of it all), so I wasn't planning to post until I finished with all the chaos, but this seemed important enough to mention quickly.