http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/

Aveeno kind of masquerades as a natural/healthy product line but it still has the usual nasty stuff in it. If you're really trying to limit sulfates, xeno estrogens, and other ingredients that are hard to pronounce, try good old fashioned bar soap from the hippies at your local farmers market or flea market, making sure to ask what's in their products.

Another good place to start is The Better World Shopping Guide. A reference that ranks companies in terms of social justice and environmental sustainability, and this often correlates to good clean products.

Apply this rule to anything:

What are the ingredients? Take them one by one and Google them for their safety. If they don't list what's in them, or they list generic things like "Natural flavor", or "color", they're hiding something.

Yes, I know these are skin products, not food. I don't use any, and the reason is simple. Anything you put on your skin has a high potential of being absorbed all the way into your blood.

The logic is this: if a nicotine patch's nicotine can be absorbed all the way into your blood, if the Dramamine patch's ingredients can be absorbed in your blood and prevent sea sickness while on a cruise, if magnesium from Epsom salts or Magnesium oil can be absorbed into your blood, then so can a lot of whatever else you put on your skin.

If you wouldn't eat it, don't put it on.

So if you need a moisturizer, rub some water to moisturize, then seal it with coconut oil.

I see on their website that they list oat meal or shitake mushroom as their active ingredients. What are their inactive ones? What scents, colors, thickeners, emulsifiers, alcohols, sunscreens, etc. do they use? Surely those have effects on us too, whether or not they claim to be inactive, and even if they don't disclose what they are.

Besides, do you eat oats? If you don't, because it is a grain, why absorb it through your skin?

Why do people feel they have to put "product" on their bodies? We didn't need any of this stuff for the million years or more than we existed.

The formula for advertising these things is fairly similar to what Big Pharma uses to advertise drugs to patients. 1st they point out some potential or invented problem, showing unhappy people with dire music, then they provide a solution and show happy shiny people, with happy people. They repeatedly pump out the same kind of stuff over and over repeating it in magazines, newspapers, billboards, etc. (thus a nod to The Big Lie) until people buy their stuff.

I make mynown lotion. It's super easy and excellent. Plus I can modify it for special needs. Coconut oil is also an awesome moisturizer.

I like Now Products 75% cocoa butter 25% jojoba oil (truly a wax). It is easier to use than the 100% cocoa butter (has to be melted and warmed up more). Aveeno has the same crap as a lot of the other junky products out there, parabens, carcinogens galore, etc.

Kiss My Face is my preferred brand.

Easy to find in most food coops, Whole Foods, online.

No SLS or parabens.

Try the California Baby line....

Plant essentials is good. Made by hand in small batches using lots of unrefined coconut oil, avocado oil etc Www.plantessentials.com.au Also sells dr bronners and other good brands

I second those who say Aveeno is fake natural. I prefer A.D.E. by Earth Science, Alba and Welleda.