Cosmetics and Breast Cancer
Because testing is voluntary and controlled by the cosmetic manufacturers, many ingredients in cosmetic products are not tested for safety. The Environmental Working Group's report Skin Deep states that 89% of ingredients used in personal care products have not been evaluated for safety by the Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR) panel, the FDA, nor any other publicly accountable institution (FDA 2000, CIR 2003). The absence of governmental oversight for this $35 billion industry means that companies routinely market products with ingredients that are poorly studied, not studied at all, or worse, known to pose potentially serious health risks. It's time to protect consumers.
Many cosmetics contain chemicals known as parabens and phthalates, which recent studies indicate may be linked to cancer development.
- Parabens are chemical preservatives that have been identified as estrogenic and disruptive of normal hormone function. (Estrogenic chemicals mimic the function of the naturally occurring hormone estrogen, and exposure to external estrogens has been shown to increase the risk of breast cancer.)
- Phthalates are known to cause a broad range of birth defects and lifelong reproductive problems in laboratory animals exposed to these chemicals during pregnancy and after birth. Phthalates are also known to be hormone-mimicking chemicals, many of which disrupt normal hormonal processes, raising concern about their implications for increased breast cancer risk.
Many cosmetic companies argue that the level of a harmful chemical in any one product is not enough to harm you, based on studies of chemical exposure in adults. However, science is finding the timing of exposure is crucial, and that even a very small dose of some chemicals can have serious consequences in children and young women who are still developing.
And we are rarely exposed to a chemical just one time. We may use the same product every day, several days a week, for months or years. In addition, we use dozens of personal care products daily, not just one. So while exposure from one product on one day may be small, the fact is we use numerous products a day for extended periods of time. As a result, scientists are finding chemicals such as parabens and phthalates accumulating in our bodies.
Many diseases like cancer, asthma, birth defects and learning disabilities are on the rise, and there is growing evidence that these health problems are linked to the chemicals we are exposed to in our air, water, food, and everyday products. It's time we start acting to protect human health. The Precautionary Principle, a common sense approach to chemical use, says "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".
List of Paraben-Free Cosmetics Companies
If you don't see your cosmetics company here you can:
- Look on the label for the following ingredients to avoid: methylparaben, propylparaben, isoparaben, or butylparaben.
- Find out which company makes the product you use and see if they have an ingredient list available on the company’s web site.
- Email or call the company and asking them if your product contains parabens.
List of Phthlate-Free Cosmetics Companies
The Difficulty in Avoiding Phthalates
All US cosmetics and personal care products are required list their ingredients in order of their relative quantity, with the most frequently used ingredient listed first. However, any ingredients used in fragrances or mixtures are considered trade secrets and are exempt from these requirements. Phthalates are frequently components of fragrance, which often contains dozens of chemicals. The entire mixture simply appears as “fragrance” on the ingredient list. Thus, reading labels cannot assure there are no phthalates in a product.
This fragrance and trade secret loophole gives consumers little power to avoid phthalates when purchasing their personal care products. E-mail or call the company to ask them if your product contains phthalates.
After extensive research, BCA was able to find some natural cosmetic companies that make products without phthalates, but this is not meant to be an exhaustive list of all companies that are phthalates-free.