Skin Deep: The Hidden Toxins in Cosmetics and Personal Care Products

Recently, leading cosmetic companies including Avon, Estee Lauder, and Revlon embarked on a campaign to distribute pink ribbons, which are intended to highlight the need to support the fight against breast cancer. The response of leading activist organization Breast Cancer Action Network was swift and sure. They condemned the campaign as a marketing gimmick and the companies as hypocritical. Why? Because the very cosmetic and personal care products these and many other companies make are loaded with compounds believed to cause cancer.

It’s hard to believe, but it’s a fact that experts say is becoming increasingly clear: most mainstream cosmetic and personal care products contain at least one hazardous chemical compound, and many contain far more than that. By various estimates, there are between about 5,000 and 10,000 ingredients currently being used in everything from eyeliner and lipstick to shampoos and deodorants. While many are thought to be perfectly safe, many are not. The National Institute of Occupational Safety, for example, has identified almost 900 personal care chemicals that are toxic in one way or another. Some cause cancer. Others cause hormone disruption. Some are neurotoxins. And still others can cause organ damage. In Europe, some 400 of these dangerous materials have been banned from consumer products.

In the U.S., we’re not so protected. The presence of chemical ingredients in make-up and personal care products is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Unfortunately, under current law, the raw ingredients used in such products aren’t subject to any kind of safety review or approval process before they’re used, and manufacturers aren’t legally obligated to submit safety data on their product formulas. Only after injuries and problems are reported by the public will investigations begin, and even then it’s a long way from there to any governmental action that might ban or restrict the compound at fault.

Investigations of the primary hazards that the cosmetic ingredients represent rarely, if ever, occur. That’s because the conditions these ingredients are believed to cause are not immediately apparent. Instead, they take a long time to develop. Unlike a rash or irritation that appears soon after a product is used and disappears soon after that use is stopped, the most problematic illnesses and disorders believed to be caused by the ingredients in personal care products typically take years to manifest themselves. Things like cancer and hormonal disruption don’t appear overnight, but only after many years. As such, though we may have excellent reason to strongly suspect cosmetic ingredients as the cause of such maladies, that link is difficult to prove because no clear cause and effect relationship between the products and the disease can be definitively shown to exist. Too much time has passed between the exposure and the end result, or, alternatively, too many years are needed for low doses of a given chemical to do their dirty work. Thus, the public and scientists have great difficulty in demonstrating a direct connection between personal care chemicals and serious long-term illness, and even greater difficulty getting the FDA to investigate. They may have solid lab results indicating that carcinogenic activity can be caused by a given chemical, but they have no real-world proof. Compounding this problem is the fact that manufacturers themselves are not required to report cosmetics-related problems to the government. In the case of cosmetics and personal care products, this is a particularly alarming state of affairs because the very nature of this family of products demands that they be used almost daily and applied directly to the skin.

Skin is the largest organ in the human body, and one of its most remarkable. A breathing layer of protection between ourselves and the world, it grows up and out in layers that replace themselves every 52 to 75 days. The average adult, in fact, sheds about 40 pounds of skin over the course of a lifetime, and typically carries around 21 square feet of it, weighing 7 pounds and containing 300 million individual cells. Each square inch of skin has roughly 10 hairs, 15 oil glands, 72 feet of nerve fiber, 100 sweat glands, and over 3 feet of blood vessels, which make our skin very absorbent and cause the things we put on it become quickly absorbed into our bodies. When it comes to traditional personal care and make-up products, this can be quite hazardous to our health. Parabens, for example, are chemical preservatives that have been found to mimic estrogen and alter the body’s delicate hormonal balance. Another class of compounds commonly found in such products is phthalates, which have been linked to breast cancer.

The good news is that in spite of cosmetic law loopholes large enough to drive a fleet of Mary Kay trucks through, ingredients must be listed on product labels. The bad news is that it often seems you need a doctorate in chemistry to even figure out how to pronounce these ingredients, not to mention understand the level of danger their presence in product formulas represents. Nevertheless, there are some key compounds that should be on your watch list. Here’s a list of some of the more common carcinogens and suspected carcinogens you’re likely to encounter in traditional product formulas:

Benzyl Acetate
Butylated Hydroxyanisole (BHA)
Butylated Hyroxytoluene (BHT)
Butyl Benzylphthalate
Coal Tar Dyes (or dyes labeled “Lakes”)
D&C Red Dyes Numbers 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 17, 19 & 33
D&C Green 5
D&C Orange 17
FD & C Blue 1 & 2
FD & C Green 3
FD & C Red 4 & 40
FD & C Blue 1, 2 & 4
Diaminophenol
Disperse Blue 1
Disperse Yellow 3
Nitrophenylenediamine
Crystalline Silica
Diethanolamine (DEA)
Dioctyl Adipate
Formaldehyde
Glutaral
Hydroquinone
Methylene Chloride
p-Phenylenediamine
Phenyl-p-phenylenediamine
Polyvinyl Pyrrolidone
Pyrocatechol
Saccharin
Talc
Titanium Dioxide

You won’t necessarily find the following compounds listed as ingredients on product labels. Instead, they’re thought of as “hidden” hazards. This list includes chemicals that are not carcinogenic in and of themselves, but may exhibit carcinogenic properties under certain conditions; hazardous materials that are often found “hiding” in other listed ingredients; and chemicals that easily combine with other common substances to create carcinogens:

Aflatoxin (found in peanut oil and flour)
Arsenic and Lead (found in coal tar dyes, polyvinyl acetate, PEGs or polyethylene glycols)
Chloroaniline (found in chlorhexidine)
Crystalline Silica (found in amorphous silicates)
DDT, Dieldrin, Endrin and other organochlorine pesticides (found in lanolin, hydrogenated cottonseed oil, and quarternium-26)
DEA or diethanolamine (found in DEA-cocamide/lauramide condensates, quarternium-26)
1,4-Dioxan (found in ethoxylated alcohols, including PEGs, oleths, choleth-24, ceteareth-3, laureths, polysorbate 60 & 80, and nonoxynol)
Ethylhexylacrylate (found in acrylate and methacrylate polymers)
Ethylene Oxide (found in PEGs, oleths, ceteareth-3, laureths, polysorbate 60 & 80, and nonoxynol)
Formaldehyde (found in polyoxymethylene urea)
Bromonitrodioxane
Bronopol or 2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol)
DEA or Diethanolamine
DEA-Cocamide, Lauramide & Oleamide
Metheneamine
Morpholine
Padimate-O or octyldimethyl para-amino benzoic acid)
Pyroglutamic Acid
Triethanolamine (TEA)
TEA-Sodium Lauryl Sulfate
Bronopol
Diazolidinyl Urea
DMDM-Hydantoin
Imidazolidinyl Urea
Metheneamine
Quarternium-15
Sodium/Hydroxymethylglycinate

(Source: Unreasonable Risk, How to Avoid Cancer from Cosmetics and Personal Care Products, by Dr. Samuel Epstein, 2001)

For more information on Breast Cancer Action, visit http://www.bcaction.org/. For more information on their Think Before You Pink ribbon campaign and the issue of cosmetics in chemicals, visit http://www.thinkbeforeyoupink.org. For further information about the subject visit http://www.gina.antczak.btinternet.co.uk/.

Suggested reading on the topic includes Unreasonable Risk by Dr. Samuel Epstein, Drop Dead Gorgeous by Kim Erickson, and Cosmetics Unmasked by Dr. Stephen and Gina Antczak.

This article was published in The Non-Toxic Times, January 2004