Chemicals in Personal Care Products
Toxins & Synthetic Additives Cause Cancer & Birth Defects
Nov 14, 2008
According to a report by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), the average adult uses nine personal care products each day, effectively swathing themselves in a grand total of 126 chemical ingredients. And the synthetic slather is even more extreme for the one in four women who regularly use more than 15 products daily. It’s even worse for teenage girls; the same organization conducted a product survey which shows that the average teenage girl uses two more personal care products daily than the average adult woman. As indicated by the Green People website, it has been estimated that some women could be absorbing as much as 5lbs of chemicals through cosmetics and toiletries each year.
How many personal care products do you use? The next time you get ready in the morning, do your own tally: cleanser, shampoo, conditioner, moisturizer, concealer, mascara, lip gloss – they add up pretty quickly, and although many manufacturers would have us believe that all these gels, creams and coatings are both harmless and natural - touting ingredients such as tea tree oil and ginger, and trendy, sometimes ambiguous labels like “natural” and “organic” - the truth is that you’re dousing your face, hair and body in what Adria Vasil of Ecoholic refers to as a “largely untested and lengthy list of petroleum-derived, genetically modified, animal-tested or animal-based ingredients.”
Personal Care Products are Safety Tested, Right?
Most people assume that all products made available for purchase and use in the United States and Canada have passed stringent health and safety testing, but the reality is that neither country requires much testing for the manufacture and sale of these products to the public.
The Cosmetics Industry Minimally Tests Ingredients & Is Self-Policed
According to the EWG, only about 11 percent of the approximately 10,500 chemical ingredients used in the personal care products that line the shelves of your favorite pharmacy or department store have actually been tested for safety. And it’s the remaining 89 percent of untested ingredients which are used in more than 99 percent of all products on the market.
What’s more, the testing that is done isn’t conducted by the government itself, but rather by the cosmetics companies themselves (in Canada) or the Cosmetics Industry Review (CIR) board (in the United States), which has been described by the EWG as a “largely self-policing safety review board of the cosmetics industry” and is in fact funded by the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association (CTFA).
Is the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Involved in Cosmetics Safety Testing?
According to the FDA itself, the FDA's cosmetic office has no standing cosmetic review safety committee, cannot require testing of products or ingredients, cannot require companies to report injuries or even deaths from the use of their products, and cannot force companies to recall harmful products.
What Does the CIR Test For?
The EWG has revealed that 80 percent of the industry panel's reviews (of a mere 11 percent of total ingredients used in personal care products) are limited to advice on ingredient levels that will minimize risk of skin rashes or other allergic reactions. That's fine, but how about assessing ingredients' risk of posing threats of cancer and other diseases, or harm to the development of a baby in the womb?
Why Test for Ingredient Safety?
As indicated, less serious potential side effects of many chemical additives include eye irritation, skin rashes, hair loss, allergic reactions and scalp problems similar to dandruff – notice that many of these annoying symptoms are the very problems people seek to eradicate with the use of personal care products?
According to the Good Housekeeping Research Institute, 60 percent of products that are put on the skin don’t just sit on your skin, but instead are actually absorbed into the bloodstream. And the EWG indicates that many of the preservatives, fragrances and antimicrobial compounds found in personal care products – which have also been found in the blood and urine samples of teenage women – are linked to serious health risks in lab animals, even at low-dose levels. These serious long-term risks may include cancer, birth defects, hormone disruption posing potential risks to the reproductive and thyroid systems, infertility and reproductive difficulties, obesity and insulin-resistance, and nervous system damage.
