For many years, when I lived in Alaska and Washington state, I participated in the state contests of the National Federation of Press Women or NFPW. However, when the Washington chapter of the organization faded away in 2015, I missed participating in the organization and its annual contests. Read more →

Almost half of skin lightening creams tested contained dangerously high levels of mercury but continue to be sold by online retailers such as Amazon, eBay, and Flipkart, according to a report from the Zero Mercury Working Group, an international coalition. Read more →

Protect your kids, teens, and elders from poisonings by locking up potentially harmful household products and medications. Nearly nine out of 10 unintentional poisonings occur in the home. Thirty-one children under the age of five die in the U.S. each year from consumer products found in the home Read more →

Fitbit is recalling about 1 million Ionic smartwatches in the United States and about 693,000 internationally. The lithium-ion battery in the Ionic smartwatch can overheat, posing a burn hazard. Fitbit has received at least 115 reports in the U.S. – and 59 reports internationally – of the watch battery overheating. Read more →

It’s disappointing that the governors in blue states are removing covid restrictions. Just because cases from the huge spike in covid cases caused by the omicron variant are dropping dramatically doesn’t mean that the chances of getting covid are gone or are even reduced significantly. Read more →

Since I wrote an article recently on the top consumer and personal finance stories of 2021, I was interested in a list offered by U.S. PIRG on the progress made in health, climate, and consumer issues in 2021. U.S. PIRG, a public interest research group, and its state partners worked on or supported many of these issues. Read more →

The Food and Drug Administration has banned the use of toxic lead acetate in consumer hair dyes, an action that will help protect the public from hazardous chemicals. Lead acetate is the ingredient that slowly darkens gray hair when used every few days and can increase the level of lead in users’ bodies. Read more →

About 70,000 teak shower benches in the United States and about 11,317 in Canada are being recalled. The shower bench can collapse during use, posing a fall hazard to the user. Consumers have reported 81 incidents of the shower benches collapsing, breaking during use, or falling apart. Read more →

Recently, I went to a dermatologist because I had a skin rash that was getting worse. When I showed it to him, I said it seemed to appear first around a couple of mosquito bites, probably because I’m allergic to them. I showed him my hand where I had three mosquito bites in an uneven row under the knuckles on my right hand. Read more →

Only 25 percent of the sunscreens rated this year by the Environmental Working Group offer adequate protection and no worrisome ingredients such as oxybenzone. EWG researchers rated the safety and effectiveness of more than 1,800 products that advertise sun protection. Read more →