Specialized Online Reference Sites

Foerstel Design (2008). All Organic Links: Committed to the Organic Community. Retrieved March 18, 2008, from http://www.allorganiclinks.com.

This site is a highly organized directory of organic information and subcategories in the organic community. The main categories include associations & organizations, farm supplies, food, growers, health & beauty, home, reference works, service providers, and shopping. All Organic Links aims to connect consumers with businesses that support organics and a healthier planet. Each link includes a description of the site and sites are tested weekly for validity. Consumers can search the database by keywords that are found in titles, descriptions and website urls. There were roughly 74 links related to organic cosmetics in the subcategories. This site is very easy to navigate and although each site’s description is written by the contributor of the website, all the sites aim to offer additional resources to the organic community. This would be an effective source when beginning basic research about organic cosmetics in the field of beauty.

Enrivonmental Working Group. (2007) Skin Deep: Cosmetic Safety Database. Retrieved March 18, 2008, from http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com.

Skin Deep was created by the researchers of the Environmental Working Group (EWG). Due to the fact that the FDA does not require cosmetics companies to test their own products for safety, Skin Deep compares the ingredients in more than 25,000 products to 50 definitive toxicity and regulatory databases. Skin Deep is the largest integrated database for consumer resources. Consumers and investigators can learn what ingredients are in their personal care products by searching the product, ingredient or company. Search inquiries are then rated and sorted for the consumer to browse results:

The reviews of the products include the ingredients used in that product and their linked health effects, ingredients used, directions from the packaging, warnings from the packaging, ingredients concerns, and more in-depth analysis of the product. This source is very user friend and extremely informative.