Read the Label: Colours and Dyes
Most of us try to avoid foods containing artificial colours, so why do we continue to buy bodycare products and cosmetics made with unnatural and potentially harmful colours and dyes? Pat Thomas reports.
It starts when you get up in the morning. You grab a bar of soap or a bottle of shower foam and you have a wash. That’s probably your first dip into the daily palette of synthetic tints and hues that will colour much of your day.
Contact with cosmetic colours is a 24/7 experience that includes multiple exposures to multiple products. Regulatory authorities and cosmetics manufacturers go to great lengths to assure us that these colour additives are safe and add that all-important feel-good factor to their products.
Yet, there is little objective scientific evidence that this is the case, and what research there is has often been funded by the industry. While a single use of a single coloured product may be ‘safe’, your total daily exposure to all coloured products – soaps, body lotions, shampoos, conditioners, shaving cream, toothpaste, deodorants, hair dyes, lipsticks, eyeshadows and blushers – may add up to an unacceptable risk.
Colours used in cosmetics and bodycare products generally fall into one of three basic categories: organic, inorganic and natural. Organic colours are derived primarily from petroleum and are sometimes known as ‘coal-tar dyes’ or ‘synthetic organic’ colours. Inorganic colours include clays, iron oxides (which can produce yellows, browns, blacks and reds) and ultramarines (including chromium-oxide green, mica, titanium dioxide, zinc oxide and kaolin clay).
Natural colours are those that are derived from plant or animal sources. Although they can be from ‘earth’ sources, inorganic colours are not generally considered natural because they are heat-treated to various temperatures to produce different colours.
Some, like mica, can be coated with organic colours to create a particular hue. In addition, while many oxides and ultramarines were mined in the past, because of concerns over purity (mined products can be contaminated with lead, arsenic, mercury, antimony or selenium), many of these colorants today are manufactured in a lab.
Checking for the presence of potentially harmful dyes in cosmetics is difficult because the same colours can be listed on the label under any number of different names. In Europe, colours are generally listed by their International Nomenclature for Cosmetic Ingredients (INCI) numbers, usually indicated by the prefix ‘CI’ followed by five numbers.
In the US, the same colours are listed using an FD&C (Foods, Drugs and Cosmetics) or a D&C (Drugs and Cosmetics) prefix. To add to the confusion, even the ‘experts’ cannot agree on an international ‘safe’ list of colours.
This means that some colours may be allowed in one country, but banned elsewhere. All this would not be important, but for the fact that some cosmetic colours are known to cause problems in susceptible individuals.
Most organic colours can cause skin irritation, and some can block the pores. Even inorganic mineral pigments – which are generally considered safer than petroleum-derived colours – can and do produce sensitivity (allergic-type) reactions.
Iron oxides, for example, contain nickel and a large percentage of the general population – around 18 per cent – has an allergy to nickel. More worrying is the fact that many commonly used organic colours have been shown to cause cancerous growths in the skin of animals. This may be either because the raw materials used to make them are carcinogenic or because of the presence of carcinogenic impurities in some batches.
Colour con
In bodycare products, colour serves no practical purpose except for its psychological effects. Manufacturers use colour to link the product to an emotion or state of mind. Thus, a pink product will be perceived as soft and girlish, which is why it is so often found in products for teenagers and, ironically, ‘mature’ women.
A light green colour might indicate freshness, whereas white and blue have come to be associated with purity and sensitivity. While new colours are being developed all the time, this is not always done with an eye to safety.
For example, one of the newest inventions, FD&C Red 40 (also known as Allura Red or CI16035) is a popular addition to eyeshadows. It has been in use since 1994 even though the safety testing was entirely funded and carried out by the people who make it.
The US National Cancer Institute reports that p-credine, a chemical used in the manufacturing of FD&C Red 40, can cause cancer. At this time, there is simply not enough evidence to prove how safe any cosmetic colours are when they are being used on the skin daily over the longer-term.
If you absolutely must use a coloured product, learn to check the label for colour additives beginning with ‘CI75’ – these are ‘natural’, usually vegetable-based colorants (see also the list below).
Those beginning with ‘CI77’ are inorganic colours that appear to be safer than their organic alternatives. Some natural ingredients – such as chamomile or kelp – also double as colouring agents.
But if you want to use safer products, and you want to avoid having to make your way through the colour maze on the label as well, the single most effective thing you can do is choose products that are not coloured at all.
What you can do
1 Go into your bathroom and look at the labels of your favourite products. Do any of them contain the following colours?
[Common name, European name, US name]
- Alizarine Cyanine Green F, CI61570, D&C Green 5
- Acetate Blue G, CI 64500 Disperse, Blue 1
- Acetate Fast Yellow G, CI11855, Disperse Yellow 3
- Acid Red 33, CI 17200, D&C Red 33
- Allura Red, CI 16035, FD&C Red 40
- Brilliant Blue, FCF CI42090, FD&C Blue 1
- Fast Green FCF, CI42053, FD&C Green 3
- Indigo Carmine, CI73015, FD&C Blue 2
- Pigment Orange, 5 CI12075, D&C Orange 17
- Pigment Red 53 barium salt, CI15585, D&C Red 9
- Pigment Red 53 sodium salt, CI15585, D&C Red 8
- Ponceau SX, CI14700, FD&C Red 4
- Rhodamine B, CI45170, D&C Red 19
- Sunset Yellow, CI15985, FD&C Yellow 6
- Tartrazine, CI19140, FD&C Yellow 5
- Titanium Dioxide, CI 77891, Pigment White 6
2 If so, photocopy these pages, tick the boxes of the worrying colours and write to the manufacturer’s customer services department, asking them why, given that the following natural, non-toxic colours are available, they are using such ingredients in their product.
The single most effective thing you can do is choose products that are not coloured at all
- Alfalfa
- Alkanet root oil
- Annatto (CI75120)
- Beetroot
- Bentonite clay (CI77004)
- Beta-carotene (CI75130)
- Blue chamomile
- Calendula petals
- Caramel
- Carmine (CI75470)
- Carrot oil extract
- Charcoal (CI77267)
- Chlorophyll
- Cocoa powder
- Grape juice
- Henna (CI75480)
- Iron oxides
- (CI77489/77492)
- Kelp
- Turmeric
3 Ask the manufacturer to send a copy of their reply to The Ecologist, Unit 18 Chelsea Wharf, 15 Lots Rd, London SW10 0QJ or, failing that, pass the reply you do get on to us, as we will be monitoring all feedback for future investigations and campaigns.
