Safe Cosmetics and How to Find Them

In 2011 some members of congress proposed the Safe Cosmetics Act. It was a bill that died in committee, but would have introduced tighter regulations on the cosmetics industry. It would have required that cosmetics companies would have to (1) register with the FDA, (2) disclose all ingredients in each of their products, (3) pay a fee to the FDA for funding product research, (4) share safety data from the ingredient suppliers.

The bill died and had much opposition from the cosmetics industry as you can imagine. The problem is that the FDA currently only has a voluntary program that cosmetics companies can register for. They have no regulatory power over cosmetics companies because they don’t have enough information on cosmetics.

That’s where some non-profit non-governmental organizations come in. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is one group who has created the Skin Deep database of thousands of cosmetic products from face wash and lotions to makeup and nail polish. They have gathered information about the ingredients and score each product according to what ingredients are in them. Now, some of the ratings are a little arbitrary because there are some ingredients that affect the rating that are not harmful to everyone (such as some that cause allergic reaction, but only in some people who have an allergy to that ingredient). There are other ingredients that are rated that are pretty important to take note of.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics (CSC) is another organization that works with the EWG to try to get safer cosmetics. The CSC has a list of ingredients to avoid. They are:

1.       Triclosan

2.       Synthetic Musks

3.       Formaldehyde and Formaldehyde-Releasing Preservatives

4.       1,4-dioxane

5.       Hydroquinone

6.       Phthalates

7.       Parabens

8.       Lead and Other Heavy Metals

9.       Nitrosamines

I’ll talk more about these in future posts, but in this post, I looked up the Kiehls products and found they contain parabens. So I’ll cover those now.

Kiehls Herbal Blue Moisturizer:

So the one thing I found that was good about this product is that it has a bunch of natural plant extracts. Those are great.

But, I do have some concerns from looking at EWG Skin Deep. There are a bunch of chemicals in this product. There are 2 parabens in it- Butylparaben and methylparaben, which are both "in the paraben family of preservatives used by the food, pharmaceutical, and personal care product industries. Parabens mimic estrogen and can act as potential hormone (endocrine) system disruptors" according to the EWG. Parabens are also "linked to cancer, endocrine disruption, reproductive toxicity, immunotoxicity, neurotoxicity and skin irritation. Since parabens are used to kill bacteria in water-based solutions, they inherently have some toxicity to cells," according to safecosmetics.org.

The other ingredient that really stuck out to me was the FD&C Blue coloring. I personally do not see the need to put a synthetic dye that is made from petroleum in my facial cleanser. I would prefer a product that has no dyes in it.

Here is the EWG link to the moisturizer: 

http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/product/144424/KIEHL%27S_BLUE_HERBAL_MOISTURIZER_%282007_formulation%29/

Kiehls Pineapple Papaya Facial Scrub:

From looking this up on the EWG, the initial ingredient that sticks out as a risk is Retinyl Palmitate (Vitamin A Palmitate). I did some research on this ingredient and RP was researched by the FDA and while they think that there could be a link between RP and cancer, they have not given it a final conclusion. The problem with the research study conducted was that it was done on mice who were immune compromised , albino, and more susceptible to skin cancer. Dr. Steven Wang, who was the lead investigator and head of the American Academy of Dermatology said that the results of the study are very hard to apply to humans because of the way the study was conducted. So I would hold off on this being of huge concern until there is better, more conclusive data.

The other ingredients in the scrub though such as methylparaben and phenoxyethanol are again of concern. Phenoxyethanol is a preservative ingredient that can cause skin and eye irritation.

So my point for this post is this:

Use your resources, such as EWG’s Skin Deep database to look up the ingredients in the products you are considering buying. It gives you a great starting point to do your research before you go putting any product on your skin. The skin is very porous and much of what we put on our skin gets absorbed into the blood stream very quickly. Therefore, know what you are putting on your skin, because it is going to end up in your body.

Sure, not everything on the database is the complete information, but you can use it to start looking up other information. If many sources are saying something is true, then you might have a good reason to use caution.

I hope you found this information useful.  Happy researching!

xoxo-Meg