October Tips for Breast Cancer Prevention

October is traditionally known as Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but with our long time partners at Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, it’s Breast Cancer Prevention Month! Currently, 1 in 8 women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer, a stat all too many of us are familiar with.

When you start to look at toxic products in your household, it’s sometimes overwhelming, but BCPP has some easy recommendations to follow. Check out their top 10 tips: 

1. Minimize fragrance or look for companies that fully disclose their ingredients. Fragrance (or parfum) ingredients are often secret and can cause: breast cancer, birth defects, air and water pollution, asthma, allergies + more. The good news is this doesn’t mean you can’t wear or use your favorite scents. It does mean you need to look at ingredients though! We recommend using an app like Clearya or Think Dirty to help you sort through those lists that are especially long.
2. Eat organic fruits, veggies and locally sourced foods. It’s not only good for your heath, but it helps reduce emissions and waste. Buy local food to reduce the distance from farm to fork, frequent your local farmers’ market, or join a local food co-op. Buy organic food to keep your body and the environment free of toxic pesticides by supporting farmers and companies who use organic ingredients.
3. Clean your house with a wet towel. You’ll capture more grime in your house by dusting with a wet towel, and it won’t stir up dust.
4. Take off your shoes at the door. Keep your home clean by avoiding toxic chemicals tracked in by your shoes.
5. Ditch plastic! Plastics can leach harmful chemicals like BPA and phthalates into your food and beverages – and in turn – into you. Use glass, ceramic, cloth (like beeswax-infused organic cotton), and stainless-steel food storage containers and reusable BPA-free water bottles.
6. Skip the print, go online. Change your paper bills to online billing. You’ll save trees and the fuel it takes to deliver your bills by truck. Plus, store receipts, gas pump receipts, and airline boarding passes are coated in BPA or BPA-like chemicals and touching them can result in toxic chemical exposure.
7. Stop using disposable plastics, especially single-use plastics like bottles, bags and straws.
8. In addition to being bad for our planet, plastics can leach harmful chemicals like BPA and phthalates into your food and beverages.
9. Read ingredient labels! Check out Breast Cancer Prevention Partners’ Glossary of Exposures, highlighting substances with the strongest evidence linked to breast cancer.
10. It’s perfectly legal for companies to put cancer-causing chemicals in our products. Visit our action center and use your voice to make a change!

Choosing safer products is a lifelong process, and our goal at BCPP is to make this easier through policy reform. They have recently introduced The Safer Beauty Bill Package, a suite of four bills will make personal care products safer for everyone. BCPP’s final tip is to learn more and support the bills! As you start to get into the groove of finding new products and replacing the ones you have, visit bcpp.org to stay up to date on the latest science. 

BCPP's goal is to live in a world where fewer women hear the words “You have breast cancer.” By supporting their work, shopping safer brands (like Juice Beauty), and pushing for policy reform, our collective goal will become a reality.Juice Beauty and BCPP have had a strong and long lasting partnership since 2002. Here's a glimpse of our work together.

The 1st State of the Evidence report was released by Breast Cancer Prevention Partners documenting the environmental aspects that contribute to various cancers. Juice Beauty's founder, Karen Behnke first read Breast Cancer Prevention Partners’ (BCPP) State of the Evidence before she started Juice Beauty. This science based research document became one of her guiding principles for formulating Juice Beauty products and helped lay the foundation for Karen to become a leader in the clean/green/organic beauty industry.  Juice Beauty has partnered with Breast Cancer Prevention Partners’ since 2005 as we share being mission driven and have shared values.  BCPP is a science-based advocacy organization that works to prevent breast cancer by eliminating exposure to toxic chemicals and radiation.

BCPP has brought to light the harmful effects of Teflon, Lead, endocrine disrupting synthetic fragrance, parabens, glyphosate, and many more potentially dangerous chemicals. Their tireless research and efforts have brought legislative law modifications to protect consumers and the planet, and have driven consumer behavior modification which ultimately has created major changes in the big consumer products companies.