125 chemicals before you walk out the door.
Posted June 27th, 2011 by Claire MoshenbergOnce upon a time, in a tropical land called Northern Virginia in July, I was a waitress.
Waiting tables came with its fair share of health effects: Aching feet, sunburned skin, and restless nights studded with telltale server nightmares about forgotten tables and fuming customers. Surprisingly, the most lasting damage didn’t come from sleepless nights or beat-up-feet. It came from my twice a day beauty rituals. 12 hours days, split between lunch and dinner, required a long shower and a liberal amount of humidity-battling hair products to transform me from a sweaty civilian into a smiling server.
Not everyone is working outside, not everyone is peddling quasi-French-entrees to the dinner rush, but apparently, most women have their own shockingly toxic beauty routines. Women use on average 12 personal care products a day, exposing them to over 125 unique chemicals daily. Only 11% of chemicals in personal care products in the U.S. have been assessed for safety by the industry’s self-policing panel. In fact, of the 12,000 ingredients used in personal care products, only 8 have been banned since our cosmetics legislation first passed in 1938.
The existing laws for cosmetics haven’t been updated for 70 years; it’s time for a makeover. Ask your U.S. House members to co-sponsor the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2011: http://moms.ly/juPwxr
Late last week, Congressional leaders reintroduced the federal Safe Cosmetics Act in the House of Representatives. This bill (H.R.2359) would give the FDA the authority it needs to ensure that personal care products are free of harmful substances like lead, 1,4-dioxane and chemicals linked to cancer. The existing law, which has not been updated in 70 years, allows companies to use toxic chemicals in products we use on our bodies every day.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen arsenic in baby shampoo, neurotoxins in perfume, formaldehyde in Brazilian blowouts—even that urban legend about lead in lipstick turned out to be true. Even products that claim to be “Natural,” “Herbal,” or “Organic” can’t be trusted, since there is no legal definition for any of these terms. “Companies say, ‘We do a lot of testing.’ But they’re looking for short-term effects like a rash,” said Stacy Malkan, co-founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. “They’re not looking at long-term health effects like cancer risk.”
Taking a shower, washing your kids’ hair, applying sunscreen lotion: These every day moments shouldn’t be laced with toxic chemicals. We know the U.S. can do better when it comes to keeping our families safe. Urge your U.S. House members to co-sponsor the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2011. Together, let’s protect our families by giving the cosmetics industry the makeover it deserves.
5 Comments
July 4, 2011 at 2:38 pm by DennisThis Bill should be opposed in its current form as it is full of unscientific propaganda and scare tactics that will not serve the public in any way at all. Everyone agrees that “safe” cosmetics are critical but this bill does not do anything but throw blind support behind the EWG and CFSC.
Check out this Blog for all the scientific details of the bill and exactly what each of the potential problems are.
http://essentialu.typepad.com/
Just because it has the word “Safe” in the name does not make it so.
Dennis Fioravanti
CEO
Essential Labs
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June 30, 2011 at 12:47 pm by Stacy MalkanCosmetics safety has been left up to the industry for far too long, with too little power and funding to FDA. The result is that companies are making decisions all over the board — some are making products safe enough to eat and fully disclosing ingredients, while many others are putting cancer-causing chemicals and other toxins into their products and calling them “pure” and “healthy”.
The 1938 cosmetics laws are long overdue for an update. The Safe Cosmetics Act would do three key things that are necessary to protect consumers and help level the playing field for companies:
1. Phase out ingredients linked to cancer, birth defects and developmental harm.
2. Require full disclosure of product ingredients.
3. Set up a system to review the safety of cosmetic ingredients under FDA.
That last part is crucial to get to the solution Erin suggests: creating a list of the most chemicals that shouldn’t be used in cosmetics — as Europe and other countries are already doing.
The new version of the bill also exempts businesses with less than $2 million in revenue from registering and paperwork requirements. The bill sponsors worked hard to listen to the feedback of the small business community and to make sure the new bill is workable and helpful for small businesses.
Thank you for the dialogue,
Stacy Malkan
Campaign for Safe Cosmetics
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June 30, 2011 at 8:55 am by MiaThanks for your thoughtful comment, Erin. It is not unusual that the full text of the bill is not online right after a bill introduction. I was told that in this case it may be taking longer than usual to get the full text online because Congress is on recess this week and many staff are on vacation.
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has had the opportunity to pore over the bill and is very supportive; the law would empower the FDA to actually regulate the $50 billion cosmetics industry, which simply isn’t happening right now.
Have you seen the Campaign’s page on the bill? Please check out http://www.SafeCosmetics.org/safecosmeticsact to learn more about the changes in the 2011 bill, changes that are the result of informed comments from dozens of cosmetics companies that are not anti-regulation, but who saw the need to make the bill more workable for small business. When you have the chance to read the bill text yourself, which will be very soon, I hope you’re excited about the possibility to fix this very broken system! I know I am!
Re: your point about a “list” of toxic chemicals, please see this FAQ on our website: The Safe Cosmetics Act directs the FDA to distinguish between “safe” and “dangerous” cosmetic ingredients by applying a standard definition of safety to those chemicals. The safety standard included in the bill is designed to protect the most vulnerable populations, including infants, children, pregnant women and workers.
Within 2 years of bill enactment, the FDA will develop a list of cosmetics ingredients shown to be strongly associated with cancer and reproductive and developmental harm based on lists of these chemicals generated by authoritative scientific and regulatory bodies (such as the National Toxicology Program, IARC, and NIH). These chemicals, as well as other harmful chemicals, will be prohibited or restricted for use in cosmetics based on the safety standard. The agency will also generate a list of ingredients that are considered safe without limits for use in cosmetics within that same 2-year timeframe.
We hope you’ll get involved with the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, and if you have more questions please contact us at info@safecosmetics.org
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June 28, 2011 at 11:39 am by AnnieIt is amazing what we willingly do to ourselves for the sake of beauty etc… My friend used to get many of her products from the health food store etc.. I would make fun of her avocado soap and cucumber deodorant until she had me check out the labels on the stuff I used. I was mortified. Guess cucumber and avocados are a welcome relief.
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June 28, 2011 at 9:42 am by ErinHi there!
I haven’t been able to read the actual text of the new bill- every source I go to says that it has not been released by the Government Printing Office. I don’t support any proposed legislation, until I’ve had a chance to read it. The last attempt, even though it was named “The Safe Cosmetics Act,” HR 5786, did little to keep harmful chemicals out of cosmetics, and instead, buried small businesses like mine (which already use verifiably safe, natural ingredients) under stacks of paperwork, registration fees and testing of products that have already been tested and determined safe for use.
Reform is definitely needed, though.
You state in your blog article that the existing FDA regulation allows companies to use toxic chemicals in their products. However,
the current FDA Cosmetic Act specifically states “The FD&C Act prohibits the marketing of adulterated or misbranded cosmetics” and that “Under the FD&C Act, a cosmetic is adulterated if–
“it bears or contains any poisonous or deleterious substance which may render it injurious to users under the conditions of use prescribed in the labeling thereof, or under conditions of use as are customary and usual.”
(source, FDA.gov)
A real problem, is that there is no conclusive list of toxic chemicals. I believe that the writers of the existing law chose the term “poisonous or deleterious substances” because, rather than being a static list of known-toxic chemicals, this term would allow chemicals determined to be toxic in future years, to also be banned.
The use of the overly general term has definitely caused issues with enforcement. New chemicals are constantly being created and also discovered as toxic- therefore, any attempt at creating a list, will need to allow for additions and deletions as well.
That said, I see the big issues being that the FDA is NOT enforcing laws we already have, and that they really should clarify which chemicals are “poisonous or deleterious.”
Rather than writing new legislation, such as the last attempt (2010′s HR5786) which ultimately would have squelched businesses like mine that ARE creating natural, safe products, I would really love to see enforcement and clarification of existing law.
When the text of the bill is actually available, I’m hopeful that it will be exactly what we need, and not just new legislation that ultimately benefits lobbying groups, and large corporations but does little to keep toxic filth out of the products we buy.
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