When you walk through the aisles of a store looking for makeup, skin, or hair products, most people judge the quality of the product on the smell, packaging, function, and if you’re lucky, the “not tested on animals” emblem. Very few will actually look to the back and read the ingredients list, which is perhaps the most important and the scariest part of the product.
The FDA defines cosmetic products as “articles intended to be rubbed, poured, sprinkled, or sprayed on, introduced into, or otherwise applied to the human body…for cleansing, beautifying, promoting attractiveness, or altering the appearance.” This definition pertains to pretty much every product that you have sitting in your bathroom other than soap and products that are considered drugs. That means lotions, perfumes, makeup, hairsprays, shampoos and conditioners, deodorants, nail polish, and many others fall under the FDA definition of cosmetics. Now you might be asking why this matters and it’s because these products don’t need to be approved by the FDA, they’re only “regulated”.
This means that no pre-market testing is required, so untested chemicals can be and are used in tons of cosmetics.
The FDA instead authorizes “the cosmetics industry to self-police ingredient safety through its Cosmetics Ingredient Review panel” and states that, “…a cosmetic manufacturer may use almost any raw material as a cosmetic ingredient and market the product without an approval from FDA.” This means that a company could verify that the chemical that they’re using is safe, without running it by the FDA, and without having to test it first.
Some of the chemicals that these companies get away with using are harmful and sometimes even carcinogenic. Chemicals such as Formaldehyde (widely found in keratin hair products, nail polish, eye makeup, shampoo, and blush), coal tar (in various hair products), and silica (found in various makeup, skin, and hair products) are known as human carcinogens yet are legally used in products all around us.
The lack in regulation also means that companies can and do label their products as natural or organic only because they use one or more natural or organic ingredients. This allows them to mislabel their products. So even if you see organic on the front, reading the ingredients in always a good things to do.
I wanted to see for myself the chemicals inside everyday products, so I picked out my TRESemmé Anti-Breakage Shampoo and googled the ingredients that I didn’t recognize. The second ingredient on the list (meaning that it has the second largest comparative volume than any other ingredient on the list) is sodium laureth sulfate, which is known skin irritant and is also used to kill plants and insects. I them came across glycol distearate, which has “insufficient toxicology studies to even endorse this use”. This means that it hasn’t even been tested enough to know if it is safe to use. Then there was tocopheryl acetate, which contains harmful impurities that can be linked to cancer. I then found dmdm hydantoin, which is a type of formaldehyde-releaser, making it toxic. Last but not least, there was methylisothiazolinone and methylchloroisothiazolinone, which are both preservatives that have been linked to lung issues and possible neurotoxicity.
I only listed the worst five that I could find, but many of the others on the list either didn’t have enough information on the internet about them (meaning they haven’t been tested much before) or they weren’t toxic in that dose or context. For example, if some of the chemicals were used in an aerosol or a toothpaste instead of a shampoo, they would be toxic. This means that though some of these chemicals aren’t necessarily dangerous to wash and rinse, they still aren’t meant to be used on the human body.
Also, this was only one bottle of shampoo. If you include the conditioner, toothpaste, lotion, and makeup that you most likely use on an everyday basis, there are probably a lot of dangerous chemicals in your system. The chemicals in these products don’t only effect the ones that use it either. The people who create these products are effected, as well as the environment.
People are beginning to realize that the chemicals in their daily routines aren’t always the safest. Because of this, more brands such as Lush are producing products that don’t contain the nasty ingredients. They’re more expensive, but they’re better for your body. Next time you shop for cosmetic products, be aware of what you’re buying, and stay safe and healthy.
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