GRAND RAPIDS - Spend a few minutes listening to Stacy Malkan, and you’re likely to toss your lipstick and deodorant in the trash, along with a lot of the other beauty products fighting for space in your bathroom cabinets.

Malkan is the co-founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, and has spent the last 12 years researching the dangers of the cosmetic industry. Many products have ingredients linked to cancer or birth defects, contends the group, a coalition of health, labor, environmental, and consumer-rights groups.

Her ’s 2007 book,"Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry," reveals the toxic truth about the personal care products used daily by women, men, teenagers and children – and how activists are forcing the industry to clean up its act.

She’ll talk about her research during a luncheon at Aquinas College at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, which benefits the Jane Hibbard Idema Women’s Studies Center. This event costs $50. She will also do a book signing that evening from 7 - 8 pm, which is free. Details about both events – which will be held at the college’s Wege Ballroom - at Aquinas.edu/womenscenter.

Malkan cites Brazillian Blowouts as a more recent example of the danger of beauty products. The pricy hair smoothing treatment has been tied to reports of hair loss, rashes and allergic reactions from nose bleeds to trouble breathing.

The Los Angeles company that makes the product recently agreed to a $4.5 million settlement because of formaldehyde exposure. CEO Mike Brady told The New York Times that the agreement allows the company “to sell the product for forever without formulation.”

The product has been banned in Canada and other countries, while the federal U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration has issued only a health alert, warning salons to stop using formaldehyde-based hair straighteners.

Most hair products that color, straighten or curl hair have toxic ingredients, Malkan said.

Then there’s the stuff women put on their face. Most lipsticks have lead in them, while many skin creams have mercury, she said. Toxic ingredients are in many nail polishes, deodorants and skin whitening creams as well.

Because the FDA has no authority to require pre-market safety assessment as it does with drugs, cosmetics are among the least-regulated products on the market, Malkan said.

“My message is that we have to educate ourselves how to protect ourselves from toxic ingredients,” said Malkan. “You have to do your research and not just accept what companies are saying with their marketing claims. There is a lot of greenwashing with words like natural, gentle and even organic.”

Most women use an average of 12 products.

Malkan's advice is to user fewer products, especially on babies, kids and when pregnant. She advises selecting products with the fewest synthetic chemicals.

This month, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is reviewing sweeping Food and Drug Administration legislation that would amend the 1938 Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

“We have been pushing for a bill that requires companies to stop using chemicals linked to cancer and birth defects, which is the case in Europe” said Malkan.

Malkan’s organization and other groups want to see the changes incorporate the federal Safe Cosmetics Act, introduced by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D, Ill.), that prohibit cancer-causing chemicals (like formaldehyde) from cosmetics, require full labeling of personal care products and set up a system to assess ingredient safety.

Despite her dire warnings, Malkan says there are safe alternatives in the cosmetics industry. They are listed at comesticsdatabase.org

And yes, Malkan does wear make-up herself although the products are made with non-toxic ingredients. But she has stopped coloring her hair because of the health risks.

“Sometimes it gets overwhelming what I need to know to protect myself,” said Malkan. “There’s a lot of things we can’t do anything about the environment like air and water pollution. We do control what we put on our bodies.”