Chemical Skincare

Not long ago, processing meant progress. Canned vegetables, leaded paints, synthetic fabrics just about everything, we believed, could be improved through a combination of laboratory-derived additives and human ingenuity. But as medical advances have furthered our understanding of the body, we have learned that when it comes to chemicals, less is often more. For years now, health-conscious consumers and public policy-makers have kept a close watch on the ingredients that go into foods and cleaning supplies.

The time has come to take a closer look at the chemistry of skincare products. What substances really go into the moisturizers, creams, scrubs, and other products in our grooming routines? How do they interact with our bodies? And are they safe for daily use?

The answers may surprise you. Many of the ingredients used in personal care products can, over time, compromise our health and that of our families. Although some skincare companies have made a conscious policy of avoiding possibly harmful chemicals, large segments of the beauty industry make use of ingredients that are known or suspected carcinogens, mutagens, or reproductive toxins. And it’s all perfectly legal. Unlike food, such personal care products as shampoos, body washes, lotions, and makeup are not regulated by the FDA, or any other government agency.

Consumers and manufacturers are finally starting to take notice of the problem. “Because we’re using items like moisturizer and sunblock daily, we need to know more about the cumulative effects of the toxins they contain, no matter how minute the quantities,” says Gay Browne, founder and publisher of Greenopia, an environmental products and services guide (The Green Media Group). “Fortunately, there is a growing awareness among consumers that non-toxic products are better for our bodies, as well as the planet.”

What’s Hiding Behind the Label?

We all want our skincare products to be fresh, to smell good, and to spread smoothly across our skin. We expect some of them to clean our bodies, others to add color or take away fine lines. The problem is that it’s not always easy to obtain these properties on a mass scale without resorting to potentially hazardous ingredients. The images on skincare packaging may seem tranquil and lovely on the surface; but understanding the health effects of these products is a complex task, involving many trade-offs and uncertainties.

Staying Fresh

Let’s start with what it takes to keep a skincare product fresh. For eighty years, the chief preservatives used in skincare products have been parabens, a class of chemicals that includes methylparaben, ethylparaben, and propylparaben. Parabens act as bactericides and fungicides, thus helping avoid spoilage. Some plants, such as cucumbers and carrots, make parabens naturally in order to protect themselves from microorganisms. But most of the parabens added to skincare products are manufactured in the lab.

In spite of their long track record, parabens may not be as benign as once believed. Dozens of scientific studies have indicated that parabens can cause a hormone-like response when applied to laboratory animals or on tissue cultures. In a report titled “Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products on the Environment: Agents of Subtle Change?” the Environmental Protection Agency noted that parabens mimic estrogens when they come into contact with the body. Chemicals that “read” as hormones by the body can disrupt the endocrine system, potentially causing heath problems and reproductive disorders. A report in the journal of Applied Toxicology, which examined twenty breast tumors and found parabens in eighteen of them, suggested that parabens accumulate in the breast tissue after being absorbed by the skin.

Here’s where the issue gets complex. “As skincare products become more organic and natural, some preservative is necessary to prevent the ingredients from spoiling,” says Dr. Stuart Kaplan, a dermatologist with a private practice in Beverly Hills, California, and assistant clinical professor of dermatology at the University of California-Los Angeles. “When a product claims to be paraben-free, it does not mean it’s preservative-free. How do we know that what is replacing parabens will be better?”

A number of companies, however, are confident that better alternatives exist. The eco-conscious company, Aveda, for example, has pioneered the use of salicylic acid from oil of wintergreen as a naturally derived alternative to petrochemical-derived salicylic acid. At low levels, the salicylic acid from oil of wintergreen acts as a mild exfoliant and its antibacterial properties provide an alternative to synthetic preservatives. Plant-based derivatives such as benzoic acid and sorbic acid can also serve as effective shields against molds and yeast. And Weleda, an 80-year-old Swiss-based company that has been a pioneer in the natural and organic skincare movement, employs packaging techniques that, in some instances, eliminate the need for artificial preservatives.

Smelling Sweet

Fragrances are another heavily contested issue when it comes to skincare and safety. After all, nothing smells finer than a deliciously perfumed skincare product. Sometimes it’s not just a matter of adding a pleasing new scent but rather masking the strange odors that might otherwise emanate from these jars and tubes. Some fragrances are created by a process as simple as boiling rose petals. But other fragrances take a much more circuitous route to our noses. The individual components of fragrance are often made from synthetic odorants derived from coal tar and petroleum distillates, which have been linked to pathology in the lab.

Unfortunately, fragrance components are rarely listed on the products’ packaging. “Phthalates, a class of chemicals that are proven to have toxic effects on the body, are often hidden in the fragrance,” says Stacy Malkan, the author of Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry (New Society Publishers, 2007). “Certainly the amounts are minute. However, the larger problem is that we are exposed to phthalates from so many sources. So the ill effects are often cumulative.”

For decades, phthalates have been used as plasticizers or substances that increase the flexibility of plastic products in everything from toothbrushes to toys to water bottles. Phthalates are also added to shampoos, lotions, and other personal care products as stabilizers, lubricants, and emulsifying agents. They are also often used as solvents in perfumes.

In spite of their widespread use, their safety is heavily contested. Some scientists have linked phthalates to problems in reproductive development. A 2005 study in the journal, Environmental Health Perspectives, showed that some of the chemicals hindered testicular function in infant boys. Another study, also published in 2005, reported that human phthalate exposure during pregnancy resulted in decreased anogenital distance among baby boys, a change that in rodents exposed to phthalates is associated with genital abnormalities and endocrine disruptors. This suggests that male reproductive development in humans could be affected by prenatal exposure to phthalates. Studies in numerous other scientific journals, including the British Medical Journal link phthalates to reproductive, endocrine, respiratory, and other health disorders.

Keeping Clean

We all like to lather up in the morning. But where do all those little bubbles come from? In many best-selling shampoos and body gels, it turns out to be the same stuff that goes into industrial floor cleaners and car washes sodium laurel sulfate and its close cousin, sodium lauryth sulfate. Some studies now suggest that these agents can irritate the skin, pose a link to skin tumors, affect sense organs, and may be toxic to the body. In addition, according to the Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances, a compendium of data from the open scientific literature, which can be accessed through the Centers for Disease Control, animal studies on sodium lauryth sulfate show sense organ effects even at very low doses. Numerous studies, including a 1983 report in the Journal of the American College of Toxicology, show broad systemic toxicity.

Lighten Up

Hydroquinone is often used in skin-lightening preparations, also termed “brightening” creams. But scientific studies on the effects of hydroquinone on the body cast a dark shadow on this ingredient. A March 1999 study in the scientific journal, Biomedical Pharmacology, reported that hydroquinone has a toxic effect on cells containing melatonin. Another 1999 report, this one in the scientific journal, Toxicology, stated that hydroquinone is linked to tumor creation and DNA damage in animals. Numerous other studies have linked the prolonged use of hydroquinone with hyperpigmentation.

Staying Smooth

We want moisturizers and body creams to glide over our skin, alleviate feelings of dryness, and give us a dewy appearance. In many skincare preparations, that unctuous feeling comes from petrochemical derivatives. (Those are the parts of crude oil that don’t make it into your gas tank.) Petrochemicals include benzoic acid, ethanol, ethylene, vinyl acetate, propylene, toluene, and dozens of others. Petrochemicals are used to make petroleum jelly, mineral oil, and paraffin wax, and they are in wide use as components in other cosmetic preparations. Propylene glycol has been linked in scientific studies to eye irritation, headaches, contact dermatitis, and kidney damage. Petrochemicals can also emit harmful volatile organic compounds, such as dioxin, which can trigger asthma and other respiratory ailments. In addition, those compounds can mimic hormones in the body, causing a variety of health disorders. Exposure to petrochemicals over time may contribute to the development of cancer.

Cleaning Up

So how do you sort through safety issues to choose the products that are best for your skin? You might think that the right thing to do in the face of so many possible toxins is to stick with products labeled “natural” and “organic.” Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Making informed product choices often requires more than glancing at the label, because packaging can be misleading. The USDA sets strict standards for organic food. But at present, it doesn’t have a similar standard for soaps, shampoos, skincare products, or cosmetics.

Some firms have voluntarily adopted the USDA’s organic food standard for their body care products, which requires that 95 percent of the ingredients be organic if a product is to call itself organic. But others simply label their products “organic” without attempting to meet any external guidelines. “Because the beauty industry is largely unregulated, there are no standards for using words like, ‘natural,’ ‘pure,’ and ‘organic,'” says Malkan. “Some companies use those words as marketing gimmicks. It’s buyer beware. You have to look at the label, and also look at what’s behind the label.”

Fortunately, a number of individuals and groups are taking steps to get the information out. Once limited to the fringes, awareness of the issue is on the rise. David Steinman, the California-based author of A Safe Trip to Eden: Ten Steps to Save the Planet from a Global Warming Meltdown (Running Press, 2007) has written extensively about the toxins lurking in skincare products and has featured the issue on his radio show and podcast, Green Patriot Radio. “Consumers have the right to expect the highest purity in the products they use on themselves and their children,” he says. “And companies need to be held accountable for the safety of their products.”

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a coalition of women’s, public health, labor, environmental health, and consumer-rights groups (and for which Malkan is a spokesperson), seeks to persuade the beauty industry to phase out the use of chemicals linked to cancer, birth defects, and other health problems, and replace them with safer alternatives. The group’s website, evaluates thousands of name-brand cosmetics and skincare items. Each product is awarded a grade from 0 (most safe) to 10 (most hazardous or toxic) based on its list of ingredients. Surprisingly, the company brand often isn’t enough to ensure that a product is safe. Many companies have products that rank at one and others that rate much worse. Even companies that market themselves as “organic” are not immune from high toxicity ratings perhaps because they use industrial additives in addition to organic ingredients.

One promising development comes from the European Union, which recently passed a new regulatory system called the Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH), requiring European companies to safety-test the chemicals in their products.

“Because of [REACH], there will be a huge amount of new information about the toxicity of chemicals that will become available over the next decade,” says Malkan. Skincare activists hold out hope that the U.S. will follow Europe’s lead. “In early 2009, we’re looking to introduce legislation at the national level to regulate the cosmetics industry,” says Malkan. “We’d like to see a red-list of chemicals agreed on by the scientific community that are the most toxic chemicals and substances linked to cancer, reproductive harm, birth defects, and other health problems.” Some companies have replaced harmful ingredients with more natural and equally effective ingredients. For instance, Aveda’s Embrightenment product line uses a proprietary blend of scutellaria (an herb), mulberry root, and grape extracts to diminish the appearance of dark spots, effectively brightening the skin without hydroquinone.

Ensuring a Healthy Future

Whether our cosmetics are as safe as they should be in the future will ultimately depend on the work of both informed consumers and forward-thinking companies. A number of skincare companies have absorbed the message and are making a huge effort to produce skincare products that are both appealing and healthy. And many dermatologists, doctors, and other medical specialists say that in view of the scientific uncertainties, it may be best to avoid products with chemical additives.

“For children, especially, we want to avoid dangerous chemicals,” says Dr. Yael Halaas, assistant professor in the department of surgery at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey, and a plastic surgeon with extensive experience with skin disorders. “We don’t want to be lathering them with bacteria, either, but I personally am a huge fan of organic products.”

For some skincare specialists, avoiding dangerous chemicals in their products has been a mission throughout their careers. Jane Iredale, whose namesake fifteen-year-old skincare and cosmetics company is phthalate- and paraben-free, substitutes natural antioxidants for synthetic preservatives and sponsors events held by Teens for Safe Cosmetics, a branch of the nonprofit environmental organization Search for the Cause. “Safe cosmetics are especially important for teenagers, because what we do with our bodies at a young age has a major impact on us later in life,” says Iredale. “An enlightened teen can look forward to a healthy future, but also have a meaningful influence on those around her, including her children. I can’t think of anything more important than supporting the health of this generation.”

For now, a dollop of common sense may be the best thing you could do for your face. “”Use the same intelligence when you shop for skin care products that you use when you shop for groceries,” says Dr. Halaas. “Do your research and buy high-quality products. But above all, don’t believe the myth that good health can be bought in a jar. A nutritious diet and plenty of rest are essential for keeping your body strong and having great-looking skin.”

Safe Skin Shopping List

Look for these ingredients when you’re scanning the beauty aisle:

Shea butter
A natural moisturizer with anti-inflammatory properties, shea butter also provides a small amount of natural ultraviolet sun protection.

Katherine Stewart has always been skeptical of the beauty industry’s claims that a skin cream can change your looks. But researching the article on Chemical Skincare definitely changed the look of her medicine cabinet. “I tossed 80 per cent of my skincare kit,” she says. “Now I stick with products that don’t contain harmful ingredients.” Her search for skin care brands that are both nontoxic and effective led her to write the Skincare Pioneers story. “On the organic skincare front, there’s a lot to get excited about these days, and the women I profiled are among those leading the way.”

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