PLEASURES OF THE HEART

Pleasures of the Heart is an intimate apparel and accessories store
where customer service and education are FUNdamental. 
At our cozy boutique, we are committed to making you and your friends feel comfortable
when you take the bold step of crossing the threshold into our pleasure trove. 
Our staff encourages confidence in women and men of all sizes, ages and orientations
while giving you a safe space to comfortably explore your sexuality. 
We aspire to contribute to the emotional, psychological and physical health of all adults in our community. 
A healthy sex life is a key ingredient to general well-being.

We also offer evening classes on everything from body image to bondage! 
If you are a novice at erotica shopping or if our boutique is like a home away from home for you,
whatever your pleasure,
Pleasures of the Heart is here for you.

www.pleasuresofhteheart.com

jennifer@pleasuresoftheheart.com

Jennifer offers a 20% discount on lingerie and 25% on toys to members of Nancy's List.

Come on down to “The Ranch” and enjoy a haircut in “The Ranch” style environment,

with all the comforts of home.

Come in and see Andreas, owner and stylist. Men, women and children are welcome to “The Ranch”,

an upscale salon by the Creek Park surrounded by redwoods and rolling hills.

Enjoy your haircut while you watch the action in the park and on the Avenue

with the background noise of the Creek running below from “The Ranch” private windows…

www.theranchsalon.com

 

A MASSAGE BY MINDY

She combines her intuition and over 700 hours of training to help people manage stress both mentally and physically.

What Mindy can do is connect with you in a way to be a gentle, kind witness,
who allows you to reconnect with places in your body long forgotten or abandoned.
She can help bring you back into your physical body and help relieve mental stress and tension held in the body.
She has the ability to help you give yourself back the love and care you desire,
but for which we rarely take the time to acknowledge and offer back to ourselves.

With over 15 years as a bodyworker, creative movement student, and meditator,
Mindy's work is especially effective for people with stress in their lives as well as acute and chronic pain. 
Her approach to the body is looking at the system as a whole. 
She works to determine the original root of the physical discomfort and then,
using different massage modalities,
works through the whole system releasing the tissue
and through patterns that hold our muscle tissue in contraction.

HAT, SHIRT, AND SHADE PROVIDE BEST PROTECTION

The reason?

Products with high SPF ratings sell a false sense of security because most people using them stay out in the sun longer, still get burned (which increases risk of skin cancer) and subject their skin to large amounts of UVA radiation, the type of sunlight that does not burn but is believed responsible for considerable skin damage and cancer. High SPF products, which protect against sunburn, often provide very little protection against UVA radiation. Also, most people don't get the high SPF they pay for: people apply about a quarter of the recommended amount. In everyday practice, a product labeled SPF 100 really performs like SPF 3.2, an SPF 30 rating equates to a 2.3 and an SPF 15 translates to 2.

"Many sunscreens available in the U.S. may be the equivalent of modern-day snake oil, plying customers with claims of broad-spectrum protection but not providing it, while exposing people to potentially hazardous chemical that can penetrate the skin into the body," said Jane Houlihan, EWG Senior Vice President for Research. "When only 8 percent of sunscreens rate high for safety and efficacy, it's clear that consumers concerned about protecting themselves and their families are left with few good options."

This year, new concerns are being raised about a vitamin A compound called retinyl palmitate, found in 41 percent of sunscreens. The FDA is investigating whether this chemical, when applied to skin that is then exposed to sunlight, may accelerate skin damage and elevate skin cancer risk. FDA data suggest that vitamin A may be photocarcinogenic, meaning that in the presence of the sun's ultraviolet rays, the compound and skin undergo complex biochemical changes resulting in cancer. The evidence against vitamin A is not conclusive, but as long as it is suspect, EWG recommends that consumers choose vitamin A-free sunscreens.

EWG has again flagged products with oxybenzone, a hormone-disrupting compound that penetrates the skin and enters the bloodstream. Biomonitoring surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have detected oxybenzone in the bodies of 97 percent of Americans tested. In all, EWG researchers assessed 1,400 sunscreen products, including beach and sports lotions, sprays and creams, moisturizers, make-up and lip balms. The 39 top beach and sports products that earned EWG's "green" rating all contain the minerals zinc or titanium. EWG researchers were unable find any non-mineral sunscreens that scored better than "yellow."

Some blame falls on the FDA, which has yet to finalize regulations for sunscreens promised since 1978.  FDA officials estimate that the regulations may be issued next October – but even then, they are expected to give manufacturers at least a year, and possibly longer, to comply with the new rules.  That means the first federally regulated sunscreens won't go on store shelves before the summer of 2012.

"Both world wars, the creation of Medicare and the planning and execution of the moon landing combined took less time to achieve than FDA's promised sunscreen regulations," said Houlihan.  Meanwhile, more than one million cases of skin cancer are diagnosed in the U.S. every year. This could be the poster child for government inaction."

FRAGRANCE, PERFUME & COLOGNE – WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

The average fragrance product tested contained 14 secret chemicals not listed on the label. Among them are chemicals associated with hormone disruption and allergic reactions, and many substances that have not been assessed for safety in personal care products.Also in the ranks of undisclosed ingredients are chemicals with troubling hazardous properties or with a propensity to accumulate in human tissues.  These include diethyl phthalate, a chemical found in 97 percent of Americans, and linked to sperm damage in human epidemiological studies, and musk ketone, a synthetic fragrance ingredient that concentrates in human fat tissue and breast milk.  This complex mix of clandestine compounds in popular colognes and perfumes makes it impossible for consumers to make informed decisions about the products they consider buying.

The federal government is equally uninformed. A review of government records shows that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not assessed the vast majority of these secret fragrance chemicals for safety when used in spray-on personal care products such as fragrances. Nor have most been evaluated by the safety review panel of the International Fragrance Association or any other publicly accountable institution.

Fragrance secrecy is legal due to a giant loophole in the Federal Fair Packaging and Labeling Act of 1973, which requires companies to list cosmetics ingredients on the product labels but explicitly exempts fragrance. By taking advantage of this loophole, the cosmetics industry has kept the public in the dark about the ingredients in fragrance, even those that present potential health risks or build up in people’s bodies.

Ingredients not in a product’s hidden fragrance mixture must be listed on the label. As a result, manufacturers disclose some chemical constituents on ingredient lists but lump others together in the generic category of “fragrance.” In fact, “fragrances” are typically mixtures of many different secret chemicals, like those uncovered in this study. On average, the 17 name-brand fragrances tested in this study contained nearly equal numbers of secret and labeled ingredients, with 14 chemicals kept secret but found through testing, and 15 disclosed on labels.

Perfumes, colognes and body sprays are often called “fragrances.” But under U.S. law, the term fragrance is defined as a combination of chemicals that gives each perfume or cologne its distinct scent. Fragrance ingredients may be produced by chemical synthesis or derived from petroleum or natural raw materials. Companies that manufacture perfume or cologne purchase fragrance mixtures from fragrance houses (companies that specialize in developing fragrances) to develop their own proprietary blends. In addition to “scent” chemicals that we actually smell, perfumes and colognes also contain solvents, stabilizers, UV absorbers, preservatives and dyes. These additives are frequently, but not always, listed on product labels. In contrast, the chemical components in fragrance itself are protected as trade secrets and described on the label only as “fragrance.”

Product tests initiated by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and subsequent analyses, detailed in this report, reveal that widely recognized brand-name perfumes and colognes contain secret chemicals, sensitizers, potential hormone disruptors and chemicals not assessed for safety:

Multiple sensitizers:

The products tested contained an average of 10 chemicals that are known to be sensitizers and can trigger allergic reactions such as asthma, wheezing, headaches and contact dermatitis. All of these were listed on product labels. Giorgio Armani Acqua Di contained 19 different sensitizing chemicals that can trigger allergic reactions, more than any other product tested.

Multiple hormone disruptors:

A total of 12 different hormone-disrupting chemicals were found in the tested products, with an average of four in each product. Three products each contained seven different chemicals with the potential to disrupt the hormone system: by Halle Berry, Quicksilver and Jennifer Lopez J. Lo Glow. In each product, six of these chemicals mimic the hormone estrogen, and the seventh is associated with thyroid effects. Some of these potential hormone disruptors were listed on labels; others were undisclosed and were uncovered in product testing.

Widespread use of chemicals that have not been assessed for safety:

A review of government records shows that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not assessed the vast majority of fragrance ingredients in personal care products for safety. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR), an industry-funded and self policing body, has assessed only 19 of the 91 ingredients listed on labels or found in testing for the 17 products assessed in this study. 

According to EWG analysis, the fragrance industry has published safety assessments for only 34% of the unlabeled ingredients. The unassessed chemicals range from food additives whose safety in perfumes has not been assessed to chemicals with limited public safety data such as synthetic musk fragrances, which accumulate in the human body and may be linked to hormone disruption.

Some chemicals that are disclosed on the labels of the products in this report also raise safety concerns. They include sunscreen and ultraviolet-protector chemicals associated with hormone disruption and 24 chemical sensitizers that can trigger allergic reactions (European Commission Scientific Committee on Cosmetic Products and Non-Food Products (EC) 1999).

To make matters worse, FDA lacks the authority to require manufacturers to test cosmetics for safety, including fragranced products, before they are sold to consumers. People using perfume, cologne, body spray and other scented cosmetics like lotion and aftershave are unknowingly exposed to chemicals that may increase their risk for certain health problems.

In 1973 Congress passed the federal Fair Packaging and Labeling Act. The law, which requires companies to list cosmetics ingredients on the product labels, specifically exempts fragrances. Since then, the vague word "fragrance" is all you'll find on the label. If there's anything to be grateful for in this, "fragrance" is a recognizable word that is easily avoided by label readers.

The FDA has not assessed the vast majority of these secret fragrance chemicals for safety when used in spray-on personal care products such as fragrances. Most have not even been evaluated by the safety review panel of the International Fragrance Association (IFRA) or any other publicly accountable institution. Of the chemicals that have been tested, there isn't a lot of good news.

The vague term "fragrance" covers chemicals that can be linked to reproductive damage, hormone disruption, and can trigger allergic reactions.

Fragrances may be designed to make you smell better and feel good about yourself, but here at EWG we don't know how you can feel good when you don't know what you are putting on your body.
We hope this new report will help you make better-informed choices about your fragrances.