I've always been a L´Oréal girl myself. Sure I flirted with department store brands, but found they were twice as expensive and worked about the same. (Men, if you wash your hair or use deodorant, keep reading. This affects you, too.)
Then one night a couple of months ago I heard an interview on the radio with investigative reporter Mark Schapiro, author of Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products, about the possible toxic ingredients in many beauty and skin-care products.
Interest piqued, I poked around on the Web, learning about parabens, phthalates and other sundry ingredients that have come into question.
Then I looked in my bathroom.
• Face powder: methylparaben;
• Eye shadow: methylparaben, ethylparaben;
• Mascara: propylparaben;
• Toothpaste: methylparaben;
• Shampoo: diazolidinyl urea.
I felt a bit like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. Could all these products that I'd been using day in and day out for years - purchased, like millions, from a local drugstore - be toxic?
I looked at "natural" alternatives, including some made or sold locally. I compared prices. I debated - few of the scientific findings, after all, are conclusive. In the end, I threw my old cosmetics in the trash. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe not. Maybe after reading on, you'll do the same.
Industry under fire
One of the first things I learned that alarmed me was that the government, by law, isn't responsible for testing or approving any beauty or skin-care products.
"Cosmetic firms are responsible for substantiating the safety of their products and ingredients before marketing," the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on its Web site. "A manufacturer may use any ingredient in the formulation of a cosmetic provided that the ingredient and the finished cosmetic are safe."
The industry decides what's safe through the Cosmetic Ingredient Review, which, according to its Web site, was established in 1976 by the Cosmetic, Toiletry & Fragrance Association with support of the FDA and the Consumer Federation of America.
"Although funded by CTFA, CIR and the review process are independent from CTFA and the cosmetics industry," it states.
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, an industry watchdog, says the process is a farce.
"Major loopholes in federal law allow the $50 billion cosmetics industry to put unlimited amounts of chemicals into personal care products with no required testing, no required monitoring of health effects, and inadequate labeling requirements," its Web site states.
Europe, acting on the principle that it's better to err on the side of caution, has banned more than 1,000 cosmetic ingredients, while the U.S. has outlawed just eight, according to a Consumer Reports article.
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, in an effort to raise industry standards, has established a compact under which signers pledge to not use harmful chemicals in their products. Notably absent from the hundreds of signers are makeup giants Avon, Estée Lauder, Revlon, and my old favorite, L´Oréal.
Synthetics on the stand
Back to the dubious ingredients you might find lurking on labels (or deceptively absent).
The aforementioned phthalates (pronounced thal-lates) are a major worry for industry critics.
This class of chemicals can be used in nail polish to make it less brittle, hair spray to avoid stiffness, soaps, shampoos, lotions, perfumes and other products. They also can be present in plastics, including toys, baby bottles and food packaging.
Concerns have been raised about phthalates' ability to disrupt the human endocrine system, affecting development and reproduction by mimicking or blocking the body's natural hormones. Phthalates have been found to cause reproductive birth defects in laboratory animals, and their possible effects on children and pregnant women is of particular concern.
The industry-sponsored Cosmetic Ingredient Review, however, concluded that exposures to phthalates from cosmetics are low compared to levels that would cause adverse effects in animals.
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics says two phthalates (dibutyl and diethylhexyl) commonly used in cosmetics have been banned in the European Union and warns that they can still masquerade here under the term "fragrance."
Another oft-debated ingredient is parabens (variants include methyl-, ethyl-, propyl-, butyl-, and isopropyl-), which serve as a preservative, extending shelf-life by preventing the growth of bacteria and fungi.
Parabens can act like a weak version of the hormone estrogen and have been targeted for their possible connection to breast cancer.
The industry, however, on the Web site Cosmeticsinfo.org, says that "parabens are 100,000 times weaker than natural estrogen in the body - far too weak to have any effect in humans."
A number of other chemicals have raised concerns. Just a few are triclosan, an antibacterial commonly used in soaps and deodorants that may become toxic when combined with chlorine in tap water; lead; mercury; coal tar, used in synthetic colors; and formaldehyde, which can be released by compounds such as imidazolidinyl urea, diazolidinyl urea, and quaternium 15 - all common in cosmetics.
Full Story: http://durangoherald.com/asp-bin/article_generation.asp?article_
type=health&article_path=/health/08/health080204_1.htm
SUPPORT OUR
SPONSORS
What's Lurking In Your Cosmetics?
-
Concerns growing about potentially toxic ingredients in many cosmetics
Durango Herald, February 4, 2008
Straight to the Source
