“We’re working to put Skin Deep out of business,” says Jane Houlihan (left), VP for Research at Environmental Working Group — the nonprofit that’s put Skin Deep together.

Skin Deep’s an eco-database that gives you safety ratings on makeup, perfume, and other personal care products. Launched in 2004, Skin Deep basically does what the FDA doesn’t do — actually give us information about products we use everyday and generally assume to be tested and safe.

I got the chance to chat with Jane when I was visiting Washington DC last month, to talk about the latest version of Skin Deep, which launched earlier this month with 1000s of new product ratings and a brand new feature: the “data gap” score.

Due to loose FDA regulations, many cosmetic ingredients haven’t been properly assessed for potential health risks. So the “data gap” score gives you a sense of whether the product’s really known to be safe, or whether it just contains many untested ingredients that’re difficult to give a firm hazard rating.

“There’s so much we don’t know about product safety,” Jane said. “What is not the right way to think about the ratings is to think that a low rating means youre buying perfectly safe products. It just means you’re avoiding KNOWN hazards.”

What currently regulates the cosmetics industry’s the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, which, Jane points out, wasn’t even strong enough to ban asbestos. Basically it puts the onus on the government to prove that a chemical or ingredient is NOT safe, instead of requiring the company prove that said ingredient IS safe.

But there’s good news: The Kids-Safe Chemical Act, introduced in 2005. This legislation would overhaul the archaic and ineffective Toxic Substances Control Act. If passed, the Kids-Safe Chemical Act would require “chemicals be affirmatively proven safe for infants and children, putting the burden of proof on industry, and granting EPA unequivocal authority to request studies necessary to prove a chemical’s safety with clear deadlines to act against chemical manufacturers who fail to comply,” according to EWG.

“Let us free up our energy,” Jane says. “I don’t want women to have to spend 3 hours a day on the internet,” individually investigating cosmetics products. Besides, even if individuals do all that research and buy the safest products, they won’t be able to avoid the chemicals from these products entirely, as pollutants will enter our water and other shared resources. “You can’t buy your way out of the problem.”

Jane says she’s optimistic the Kids-Safe Chemical Act’ll pass in the next 5 years. You can track its progress, here and here.

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