By Lora Winslow, Guest Columnist
While many consumers believe that all cosmetics on the market have been tested and deemed safe, this is unfortunately not true. While the FDA has legal authority over the cosmetics industry, a law that dates back to 1938, allows the cosmetic manufacturers to regulate themselves. This means that cosmetic companies are not required by law to register their products, and instead are given the option of doing so voluntarily. The 70,000+ cosmetic products sold today are tested and determined to be safe by the self-regulated companies that make the products.
There is a bill in Congress now called ‘The Safe Cosmetics Act’ that seeks to replace the 1938 law and change the current regulatory system. (For more info, check out www.safecosmetics.org) But until then, the “self-policing” system in place presently has some flaws. Of the 8,000 individual ingredients found in cosmetics, only about 20% have been assessed by the industry’s safety panel and only 11 ingredients have been declared unsafe. Yet many of these commonly-used ingredients are linked to serious health issues including cancer, developmental problems, neurotoxicity, and hormone disruption, to name a few. Also, since companies are protected by the Freedom of Information Act they are not required to list certain ingredients on their labels. As a result, it’s often impossible to know what’s really in the products you use.
So what’s a consumer to do? Here are three basic tips for protecting yourself and your family from the many harmful chemicals we’re unknowingly exposed to daily:
- Simplify your products. Make a list of all the cosmetics and body products you use on a daily basis and see if there are any you can either stop using or replace with a natural version. Reducing the number of products you use may reduce your total exposure to chemicals.
- Start reading product labels the same way you read food labels. Your skin is porous and provides a direct route into your body. So if you wouldn’t eat it; don’t put it on your skin. Choose cosmetics that list every ingredient and its function on the label. Avoid ingredients that sound like they were made in a lab. Avoid products with the ingredient “fragrance,” as that one word is used for over 3,000 different chemicals, including some allergens, hormone disruptors and neurotoxins.
- Research your products. No matter how savvy a shopper you are, you may still have difficulties determining if a product is safe. Thankfully, the Environmental Working Group has made that easy for us by rating over 75,000 products. Visit www.ewg.org to see how your products rank or to find safer options.
While the truth about the cosmetics industry may be disconcerting, you can still paint your nails, wash your hair, soften your skin without putting your health at risk!
Lora Winslow is an Environmental Consultant and Educator, focusing on the places where we live, work and play. She lives in Portland and holds a Master of Environmental Law & Policy from Vermont Law School.
