About four years ago, I started making my own soap.  We switched all of our household products for cleaning and beauty to the natural variety.  Dish liquid and dish washer detergent, household cleaners, shampoo, deodorant, laundry soap, and bath soap.  The bath soap was so expensive, I started making it myself.  Soon after, I started making my own make-up.

As it turns out, there is a huge indie beauty industry out there.  Women (and men) like me who make homemade bath and body products that are safe and natural.  Do a search on the popular craft-selling website Etsy for soap and you will be blown away.

Well, it turns out that home soap makers are not the only folks who are concerned about the chemicals in cosmetics.  Congress also cares. So, they made a bill that would make products safer and require truthful labeling – H.R. 5786, the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010.

Side note: anyone who needs a law to make them tell the truth about what’s in their products needs to go back to kindergarten and learn the rules again.  Seriously.

The problem with Congress – wait, I mean one of the problems with Congress – is that it uses a one-size-fits-all approach that lumps small- and micro-businesses in the same category with multi-billion dollar, multi-national cosmetic companies.

In other words, the legislation before Congress now will put the same regulations on the mom making soap in her kitchen to sell on Etsy as it does on the world’s leading cosmetic manufacturers.

These regulations will require too much time and money to comply with for the small cosmetic maker, the one who started her business in order to get away from the products manufactured by the large cosmetic company.  She will no doubt have to shut down her business.

Worse still, so will many others.  That will lead to many of the supply companies for home soap and cosmetic making going out of business as well.

It might not even be possible to make your own products at home for your own home use after that.

I guess this legislation is a big win for big cosmetic, after all.  And a big loss for consumer choice and the freedom to build your own home beauty products business.

I can only hope that the people at the Indie Beauty Network and others can get through to Congress before it’s too late.

You can help.  Go here.  Sign the petition to stop the Safe Cosmetic Act of 2010 and encourage Congress to stop treating small, independent cosmetic businesses the same way they treat large manufacturers.