Read the Label: Read the Letters
Our Read the Label campaign is putting manufacturers under pressure to justify their use of toxic cosmetic ingredients. Pat Thomas reviews some of their excuses
Our Read the Label campaign asks readers to write to the manufacturers of their favourite bodycare products and ask why they continue to use potentially toxic ingredients when safer and equally effective alternatives exist… and then send us the replies.
We’ve been monitoring manufacturers’ responses for the last six months and one thing is clear: most of our readers have grasped the simple concept that just because a particular ingredient is widely used or has been approved by regulators, doesn’t prove it is safe.
Manufacturers, however, are still struggling with the idea. Letters from Cussons, Procter and Gamble, Boots, Clinique, Estee Lauder and the Body Shop as well as ‘green’ brands such as Green People, Beauty Naturals, Earth Friendly Baby, and Essential Care, suggest that many companies are still abdicating responsibility to the regulators and to industry-funded review panels such as the Cosmetics Ingredient Review.
Reformulating products can be expensive and many manufacturers prefer to put their money into spin. Often this spin spills over into communications with consumers who, it is assumed, lack the ‘technical expertise’ to understand the problems involved. Six months into our campaign and the tone and content of the comments below provide ample insight as to why cosmetic changes are still so slow in coming.
Quotes from some of the replies to your letters….. are they kidding?
“We are doing everything possible to create the most natural, effective and safe skincare. My mother (who makes the products) has spent the last 20 years researching natural bodycare formulations and her research is ongoing.“
“The inspiration for most of our products comes from traditional beauty practices used around the word… We continue to expand on this legacy, for example by reflecting the change of season in our new seasonal ranges by using cranberry and chocolate for Christmas and pastel s hades for spring.“
Thank you readers for all your contributions to this campaign. Please keep writing to manufacturers and sending us the replies you receive. We will follow up again in a few months time.
Corporate spin – Pat Thomas responds
1 “Cosmetics and toiletries are among the safest products we use in our daily lives”
“The safety of these products is regulated by the Cosmetic Directive, which is implemented in the UK by the Cosmetics Products (Safety) Regulations”
“Many chemical materials used in cosmetics have their own safety reviewed regularly in light of the latest peerreviewed scientific studies that are published”
Regulators like the FDA generally defer to the ‘safety’ reports generated by the Cosmetics Ingredient Review (CIR), an industry-funded panel established by the Cosmetics Toiletry and Fragrance Association (CTFA), an organisation representing the interests of manufacturers.
In 30 years the CIR has reviewed just 11 per cent of the 10,500 available cosmetic ingredients – in other words, 89 per cent of the ingredients used in cosmetics remain unevaluated. Current ‘safety’ testing generally looks for short-term, acute reactions such as skin redness, rashes or stinging. Reduce the risk of these reactions and you reduce the number of complaints you get.
Long-term study is rare. Yet without it no manufacturer can categorically say that the chemicals or chemical combinations in their products are safe. This is why the FDA has, in the last year, signalled its intent to force manufacturers to put basic warnings on their products: ‘Warning: The safety of this product has not been determined.’ On the basis of what is currently in most bodycare formulations, this warning would apply to 99 per cent of personal care products currently on the shelf.
2 “The process by which dihydroxyacetone (DHA) produces melanoidins [the brown coloured substances that give the tanned appearance] is called the Maillard reaction – this also causes the brown colours associated with toasted bread, beer, chocolate, coffee and maple syrup.”
The attempt to link a fake tan chemical DHA to food takes greenwash to the extreme. The Maillard reaction is a type of oxidation that occurs between sugars and proteins in food. When it occurs in the body (as opposed to on toast) it results in the formation of what are known as advanced glycation end products (AGEs), which can accumulate inside and outside cells.
Over the last 20 years AGEs have been identified as a major factor in premature aging and in a spectrum of human diseases such as diabetic complications, neurodegeneration (including Alzheimer’s), impotence, ischemic heart disease and atherosclerosis. They are also implicated in eye diseases such as diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, cataracts and agerelated macular degeneration (AMD).
3“Unlike the women in the Amazon region, most people would not expect to moisturise with pure cocoa butter or olive oil, and providing these ingredients in a fresh form and ensuring consistent, reliable quality is not a practical retail proposition. Products must be formulated with the functionality that sophisticated consumers demand.”
“All shampoo bases come from a similar family of chemicals. Without them it is not possible to clean hair properly in a modern way.”
Manufacturers often claim that they are responding to consumer demands rather than creating them. But what exactly does it mean to clean hair in a ‘modern’ way? Usually it means lots of foam, which advertising helps equate with luxury and cleaning ability even though lots of foam isn’t necessary to clean hair (or skin).
Equally, why shouldn’t ‘modern’ women moisturise with effective essentials such as pure cocoa butter or olive oil? It’s not because they don’t work, but because they have been redefined in our minds as unsophisticated and inconvenient (pure cocoa butter is a near solid that can’t be put in a pretty bottle and olive oil requires time to soak into the skin).
By using synthetic and semi-synthetics such as silicones, manufacturers have similarly redefined our perception of body lotions as ‘dry’ formulations that must evaporate/ be absorbed quickly when these superficial qualities have little to do with the functional ability of the product.
4“Prominent public health officials have stated that the current focus on ingredients like parabens (that have already been stringently reviewed and determined safe) as being dangerous to women’s health is a distraction from the real dangers like obesity, smoking, stress and poor nutrition.”
Bodycare products aren’t just harmless luxuries and their use can no longer be viewed in isolation. For instance, accumulation of estrogen mimics and other toxic ingredients in the body may be linked to weight gain. In essence the body dilutes these lipophilic – fat loving – chemicals in fatty tissue to stop them poisoning the entire system. The presence of chemical toxins in the body also triggers stress reactions.
The body cannot tell the difference between psychological stress and chemical stress – all it knows is that it is under attack and so it releases a flood of damaging stress hormones. Many toxic chemicals also interfere with the body’s ability to metabolise essential nutrients. Viewed in this way, toxic chemicals in our bodycare products are a vital link to, rather than a distraction from modern health problems.
- This article first appeared in the July/August 2006 edition of the Ecologist
