Beauty products are big business—US$34 billion in the US alone during 2006. In China, cosmetic sales have increased 25,000% since 1984. In the rush to find markets, companies may feel that they cannot take the time to do long-term studies on the safety of all the chemicals that go into their products. Some of those chemicals have very serious consequences—even cancer.
But there’s more than cancer from beauty products sold in the US and other countries. It turns out there's very little regulation of the cosmetics industry in the USA so our friends in the glamour business are putting some nasty chemistry in the stuff we put on our bodies--and on our children every day. The cosmetics regulations of the European Union are much stricter.
For details of the worse products in the US cosmetics industry, see the website, What Not To Buy:
Here's just a few examples from that website:
- Creams, nail polishes and other products that contain phthalates. Many products that contain "fragrance" contain phthalates. These disrupt hormones and cause pregnant women to produce boys (who grow up to be men) whose genitals are slightly feminine, including small penises. So men who have small penises may have the beauty products their mothers used during pregnancy to blame!
- Hair straightening products for very curly hair that produce breasts on toddlers due to high hormone levels. These products are popular in the African-American community. Mothers put the products on an infant’s hair to soften and straighten it.
- Cake makeup that contains mercury, a highly toxic metal that produces birth defects, neurological damage and heart attacks.
- Hair coloring products that contain lead, another highly toxic metal that causes neurological damage, mental retardation and insanity.
- Skin-lightening products that cause ochronosis, a disfiguring skin disease with blue and black lesions.
- Skin products and lipsticks that contain nanoparticles. These are something new. Scientists don't know what damage they're capable of and neither do the cosmetic companies.
- Skin creams and soaps with cancer-causing ingredients. A form of dioxane that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classifies as a "probable human carcinogen" is in 22% of the cosmetics sold in the USA.
Go to the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep website and type in the brand name of your favorite cosmetics to see what they contain. Note that the problems reported for any particular cosmetic may not exist in the current product since these tests were done some time ago. Current Revlon and L'Oreal products should be safer than the older products that were tested.
Where to find safe cosmetics?
There is a group of very responsible manufacturers who have signed an agreement, the “Compact for Safe Cosmetics.” These manufacturers pledge to avoid ingredients that are known to cause illness, and to have more transparency regarding their ingredients.
Revlon and L'Oreal announced in 2005 that they would begin complying with the cosmetic regulations of the European Union that went into effect in 2006. These two manufacturers have not signed the Compact for Safe Cosmetics but their products should be generally safer to use.
References:
- An interesting 55 minute radio program is available on the website, “A World of Possibilities.” If the problem of dangerous cosmetics interests you, this radio program is a must-listen.
- The website of the Phthalate Industry explains the safety of phthalates. Note that this is marketing information.
- The website of the Cosmetics, Toiletries, and Fragrance Association explains the safety of American cosmetics. Note that this is marketing information.
