A New List: The Dirty Dozen
If you grew up in Canada like we did, you probably grew up loving David Suzuki. The environmentalist and educator has been ahead of so many issues for so long, so we were quite delighted to see that the foundation that bears his name has taken on cosmetics. Yesterday they announced the findings of their months-long research into cosmetics, and they’ve unveiled their own Dirty Dozen, which has a lot in common with the ingredients we warn about in the book (where we show you how to actually find these mysterious things on product labels, and in which products they appear). We like their list!
We’d love to see Canada pave the way for reform, but considering the head of the cosmetics industry in Canada is also a former government health official, we won’t be holding our breath.
You can download the complete PDF here. And read on to see what made their list:
1. BHA and BHT
2. Coal tar dyes
3. DEA
4. Dibutyl phthalate
5. Formaldehyde-releasing preservatives
6. Parabens
7. Parfum (a.k.a. fragrance)
8. PEG compounds
9. Petrolatum
10. Siloxanes
11. Sodium laureth sulfate
12. Triclosan
Sorry for being off-topic, but I felt this was important. I just was on the Brazilian Blowout site. Within the last few days, they just posted the following:
“THE RESULTS ARE IN!
EXPOSURE LEVELS TO COSMETOLOGISTS AND CLIENTS CONSIDERED SAFE!
FORMALDEHYDE GAS LEVELS ARE WELL BELOW OSHA’S PERMISSIBLE EXPOSURE LIMITS (PEL).”
Then there is a PDF to download with information.
Gotta love David Suzuki – he makes me very proud to be Canadian since we’ve all grown up learning so much about environmental issues from him – he rocks for a guy who’s in his 70s!
Love this list. Now what would be helpful is a list of products that are considered “safe”. Can we please have that?
@ LOVE IT: Brazilian Blowout has been spinning the hell about all this bad news since day 1. I do not believe a word they say. OSHA tested bottles that came from salons; the tests BB conducted recently with a private lab were with bottles provided by BB. Of course they would come out clean. On top of that, the OSHA tested the product 4 different ways and found formeldehyde; according to BB there is only 1 way to test: the way that makes their product look best of course. Whatever. I also understand that the tests BB conducted only measured air in the middel of the salon, not air around the salon worker’s head, which OSHA tests by attaching a sensor to the worker’s lapel.
It all comes down to who you trust – OSHA and Health Canada, or a company that has been caught in a lie? At this point, I think anyone who believes anything from BB is a fool.
While I think this is a pretty decent list, it’s a little to vague for my taste. For instance, the average person is not going to know what “Formaldehyde-releasing preservatives” might include. These lists need to be very detailed in order to truly provide the education they seek to deliver.
@ Chyrstal,
If you check out the site they actually give a very clear list of what those ‘formaldehyde-releasing preservatives’ inclue.