Cough. Cough. Coughcoughocough.
Look at what now exists? The Safe Cosmetics Alliance. It sounds a lot like the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, right? Except it’s not. It’s an industry-funded campaign that appears to me to be designed to confuse you.
“The cosmetics industry is committed to maintaining its high safety standards (1) by advocating that laws keep pace with science and technology (2). We support new regulations to help strengthen FDA oversight (3), increase transparency (4), and enhance consumer confidence (5).” [Numbers ours.]
Let’s fact check it, yeah?
(1) This is a good time to refresh everyone’s memory about safety testing and the cosmetics industry. Yes, they do test their products’ ingredients for safety. Most large companies have large teams of scientists who do just that, and we believe, as we’ve said in the book, that according to whatever criteria they are using for “safe” that indeed, their products pass the test. “Safe” is a vague word, though. It’s safe because it doesn’t give me a rash? It’s safe now and we just really HOPE it’s safe to use daily for decades? It’s safe because we don’t know that it’s for sure unsafe? It’s safe because we are certain it’s benign to the human body and to nature?
If this said “The cosmetics industry is committed to ensuring that personal care products are free of reproductive toxicants, carcinogens, hormone disruptors and neurotoxins,” I’d feel a lot better about that. Precise language, clear promises, good stuff. But it doesn’t.
(2) As we all know, cosmetics regulations haven’t really changed since 1938, when they were written. Since then, the industry has exploded in size, revenue, ingredients used and certainly technology. So I’m not totally sure what they’re saying here, but it strikes me as completely ludicrous (personal opinion).
(3) As the laws are currently written, the FDA does not have the manpower, legal authority or budget to regulate the cosmetics industry and we have to assume that’s exactly how the Personal Care Products Council wants it, since they spend time and money lobbying against regulation, and have launched impressive, persuasive campaigns throughout history any time anyone has tried. (See our regulation chapter in the book for a refresher on this.) That said, the industry’s counter-take on the Safe Cosmetics Act has been that they agree that it’s time for the laws to change. As you can well imagine, however, the difference between what the Act thinks the laws should say, and what the PCPC (the industry trade group representing the industry) thinks it should say, is gigantic.
(4) The most transparent thing about a beauty product is its ingredient label, with the very important exception of its fragrance—which is in almost all products, including things like blush and eye shadow. Fragrance is at the top of our personal “no exceptions” list, and we think it should at the top of yours too. But hey—if the companies want to go totally transparent and offer up exactly what safety testing they’re doing, for instance, I would love to see that, and I bet you would too. We’d also love to see minutes from their meetings and for them to return journalists’ calls.
(5) This part sounds true! They want you to have faith in their products so that you will buy them. Unfortunately, they’re not meeting any of the criteria that would make us feel better. How about you?
In case you missed this on Friday, the FDA has issued a warning letter to the makers of the Brazilian Blowout saying that the product is ‘adultered’ and ‘misbranded.’ No shizzle! Here’s a quote from Michael W. Roosevelt, the acting director of the Office of Compliance at the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (via MSNBC):
“Brazilian Blowout is misbranded because its label and labeling (including instructions for use) makes misleading statements regarding the product’s ingredients and fails to reveal material facts with respect to consequences that may result from the use of the product.”
What can we say? Better late than never, I guess. The chief exec at Brazilian Blowout has made a statement that this is all a ‘misunderstanding’ and that they are ‘delighted’ to work with the FDA. Meanwhile, officials over there have until today to respond to the letter or possibly face seizure of the product or court action. So stay tuned!
In related news, just this morning we received another comment from a reader, Jennifer, who got the Brazilian and is now suffering from hair loss. We get these comments all the time, so I thought I’d share and do a little crowdsourcing:
I had the Brazilian Blowout around my birthday May 14, 2011. Before the treatment I had very thick hair, which I loved. I had this treatment done because the humidity is so bad in the summer and causes frizziness. Now in September I notice my hair is getting thinner every day it seems. It’s scaring me because I don’t want it to continue. I noticed strands on my floor, clothes, etc. And now i’m actually seeing the damage of the hair loss thining my hair extremely. I even asked the lady when I sat in her chair if there were any downfalls and specifically asked about hair loss. She said no then made a joke saying “you can afford it anyway” which I found unprofessional because it was a serious question which in return deserved a serious answer. I want to know why 4 months later i’m still losing hair and if/when I should expect it to stop. I would have never had this treatment done had I read up on all the negatives before hand. The results were great until I am seeing my lifeless, flat hair that has thinned to the point that I can’t believe. If anyone can give some advice or tell me if there’s stopped falling out at a certain point, I’d appreciate any advice since I am very nervous about it continuing to fall out. Thanks!
My best advice would be to use the most gentle natural products you can find, and as few as you can too. Also, load up your diet with lots of healthy fats, especially omegas, and vitamin-rich foods. Does anyone else have ideas for Jennifer? Or a similar experience to share?
Gosh, this stuff makes us mad! Especially since we’ve been screaming about it for three years now—and this is the first official response from the FDA.
We know we’ve covered the Brazilian Blowout ad nauseam, but bear with us: It feels important to keep a catalogue here of the most important news related to the ongoing controversy. Also, and just by coincidence, we got this comment from a salon worker this morning:
“I am so happy you are continuing on the horrors of these products…They are preforming this treatment all over South Florida with zero reguard for the toxicity…I have been a hairdresser for 24 years and have never seen anything this bad….please keep fighting…I am fighting on the state level!!!!!”
So with that in mind, here’s the latest on the Brazilian Blowout: The Wall Street Journal has published an excellent piece summarizing what has happened thus far and the latest developments. We already posted about the California’s impending injunction, but now members of Congress Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.) and Ed Markey (D., Mass.) have sent a letter to the FDA asking them to move on this. From the piece:
“These dangerous products are still available and used on a daily basis in salons across the United States,” the representatives wrote to the FDA. The lawmakers want the FDA to test chemical hair straighteners and recall those with high levels of formaldehyde.
Shocker, the FDA says it needs more time—they don’t like being rushed to act. And Mike Brady, chief executive of Brazilian Blowout, is claiming that the letter is “not based on any fact. It’s just based on emotion.” Really, dude? The old you’re-being-emotional line that so many women have been told by men at some point in their lives? That kind of mysogeny-laced language makes me want to barf in my mouth slash it’s the exact same thing the super-mean (and physically intimidating) BB hairdresser pulled on me when I called into question the treatment he’d given me. Which of course made me cry and feel like a total ass.
At a Congressional staff briefing taking place today, salon workers are going to be describing some of the adverse health effects they’ve experienced on account of working with the Brazilian Blowout. We only did it once and felt pretty wacked out, so we can imagine what these workers will have to report. And speaking of complaints, if you haven’t checked out the EWG’s report yet you should: They collected page up page of complaint filed with the FDA. But, you know, they need more time.
Here’s a question for you all: Do you think the FDA should test and recall these treatments, or is up to consumers and salon workers to make the choice for themselves?
Image via the WSJ article
Happy Friday! Big news: Scientific groups representing more than 40,000 researchers and clinicians have come together in the pages of the super-influential journal Science to insist that federal regulators do more—and do more, more quickly—to assess the human safety of the 12,000 new substances registered every day at the American Chemical Society.
“The need for swifter and sounder testing and review procedures cannot be overstated,” the letter says.
The letter’s corresponding author Patricia Hunt, a professor in the Washington State University School of Molecular Biosciences, said:
“As things stand now,” she added, “things get rapidly into the marketplace and the testing of them is tending to lag behind.”
Hunt told ScienceDaily that the letter was inspired by growing concerns about BPA, which more than 300 studies have found to cause adverse health effects in animals. Hormone disruptors more broadly, were also of concern. She says:
“Hormones control everything—our basic metabolism, our reproduction. We call them endocrine disruptors. They’re like endocrine bombs to a certain extent because they can disrupt all these normal functions.”
Boom. She also said one of the problems is that the methods used to assess safety—primarily toxicology—are insufficient. “The FDA and EPA need to look beyond the toxicology of substances to the other ways chemicals can affect us. … One of the problems they have is they look at some of the science and don’t know how to interpret it because it’s not done using the traditional toxicology testing paradigm,” she said. “We need geneticists, we need developmental and reproductive biologists and we need the clinical people on board to actually help interpret and evaluate some of the science.”
I think this qualifies as a sign that things are changing, no?
You betcha. Thanks to Pat Kiernan, the charming (Canadian) NY1 anchor whose twitter feed I now stalk, I learned of this new trend as I was sipping my second cup of tea this morning.
Dentists are getting in on the Botox market. Why? Because they are experts of the “musculature and anatomy of the face” and, says one dentist, “no other doctor can give an injection better than a qualified and experienced dentist.”
Now, that very well may be true, and there’s no reason to suppose dentists are any less good than dermatologists at sticking needles in people’s faces. But how widespread is it? Not very—yet.
Dentists have been using Botox to treat dental problems … and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved its use for treatment of chronic migraines. Some dentists want to take it a step further and use it for aesthetic purposes, too. In Minnesota, dentists are permitted to do the work, as long as they adhere to the same standard of care that specialists are required to meet… However, some states, including California and Nevada, say the use of Botox to improve patients’ smiles or to reduce wrinkles is outside the scope of general dentistry.
Is teeth bleaching outside the scope, though? And those caps people put on top of their teeth to make them look perfect and symmetrical? I’m not sure the issue here is dentists doing Botox—many different kinds of medical professionals use their training to perform cosmetic procedures. But it seems to speak to something a little larger that concerns me. Specifically, the increasingly breezy attitude we (/people?) have about injecting stuff into their faces—especially if that stuff comes with a black box warning from the FDA.
What do you think?
Sometimes, we forget to go back to the ABCs of what we’re doing here. Come to think of it, a lot of the time. I guess we assume that most of you reading this blog already know a few things about the chemicals in beauty products, and the lack of laws regulating them. And though this piece in today’s Huffington Post has a few factual errors, I’m going to take as another sign of the clean beauty revolution, thankyouverymuch. And it made us think it may be time for a refresher!
A. So, did you know that the cosmetics industry is self-policed, and that the FDA pretty much washes its hands of anything claiming to be a cosmetic, just as long as there’s an ingredient list on the bottle? That there’s no pre-market testing done by them, or any third body, and there’s no real requirement for companies to prove that their products are safe? Of course, they swear that they can. And they’re supposed to be able to. (But they can’t, and they’re never asked to anyways.)
B. Are you aware that the fragrance industry is protected under trade secret laws—laws that don’t require them to list any of the ingredients used in their formulations? They say that this is necessary bulwark against their formulations being ripped off, but really it’s no more than a deterrent that allows them to put whatever they want into fragrance. Anyone looking to copy a scent can take it to the lab to get the ingredients list, and as we’ve said in the past: Just because you know what’s in the Caramilk bar, doesn’t mean you can duplicate it. Consumer safety should supercede this so-called business protection.
C. Did you also know that Europe has banned over a thousand chemicals—the Huffington Post article mistakenly wrote 11,000, but that’s actually the total number of ingredients listed for use in cosmetics—while on this side of the pond we’ve only banned nine. Nine!
These are just some of the early facts that got us riled enough to write a book about this subject. And while we’re obviously clean beauty evangelists, the part that irks us the most is that information about product ingredients isn’t readily available to consumers. We don’t think everyone has to be perfectly clean—in fact we’re not (I still haven’t given up waterproof mascara)—we just think that they we should all have the information to make the right decisions for ourselves.
Is this old news to you? And what makes you the most mad about how the beauty business is operated?
Sorry, I couldn’t resist this image
A couple of weeks ago we asked you what your fountain of youth was. I made the maybe-annoying (but totally sincere!) point that for me it’s all about smiling, exercise, diet, sleep, sex and…argan oil. In other words, I don’t put much stock in products that claim to be anti-agers, because I understand the science of how our skin changes as we get older, and because I know women of all ages with lines and freckles and whatnot who absolutely embody grace and beauty—and their husbands and boyfriends and girlfriends think so too.
But we still like to keep tabs on what’s going on in the anti-aging market, and as it turns out, so does the FDA. Say what?
From Beauty Schooled:
Over 80 companies — including big girl brands like L’Oreal, Avon and Revlon! — are on a special FDA watch list because the agency believes they may be importing, manufacturing or shipping skin care creams that make “drug claims,” like that said skin cream can alter the structure or function of your body (cellulite and wrinkle erasers, anyone?) or treat or prevent disease. This is a violation of pretty much the only cosmetics law we have in this country. And the beauty industry can’t even follow that one.
We talk a little in the book about confusing “cosmeceuticals”—this is a made up marketing term that means nothing but implies a lot. Specifically: a performance that could be almost drug-like, and the sense that it may be doctor-recommended, probably because so many of these lines are actually by doctors. These are essentially products that make drug-like claims, but are regulated (which is to say, are not really regulated at all) as cosmetics.
By definition, cosmetics are supposed to be, well, cosmetic. According to the FDA, cosmetics are defined by their intended use, as “articles intended to be rubbed, poured, sprinkled, or sprayed on, introduced into, or otherwise applied to the human body…for cleansing, beautifying, promoting attractiveness, or altering the appearance.”
If it were true that all cosmetics do is alter appearance and “promote attractiveness” (LOL), then we wouldn’t have had a book to write. We’d also have really dirty clothes, because that would mean our skin is impermeable and so everything we put on ourselves would just rub off onto anything else that touched it, which is obviously not what happens.
The bottom line is it’s simply not true that cosmetics behave in a way that is purely cosmetic. So shouldn’t some of them be treated like drugs? Yes, say many experts—even some conservative ones who probably disagree with almost everything else we say. Tthe FDA even has a section of its site devoted to the matter.
Through the trusty channels of skin absorption and inhalation, some—though not all—ingredients do make their way into our bodies, where all kinds of undesirable things can happen. So the problem, as we see it, is the way cosmetics are defined in the first place. The science has outpaced the definitions and the regulations, and based on what we now know about some ingredients—from the ones that promise to plump up our smile lines to the ones that promise nothing but can sneak into our bodies and mess with our hormones—it’s time for the FDA to hop out of its time machine and do something.
I’m not entirely sure what to make of this new front-of-package and quick-to-read food label. For starters it’s a voluntary move by the food industry (which instantly smells fishy), and for seconds (ok, no more puns) they’re claiming altruistic motivations. As reported in the Los Angeles Times:
New labels, called Nutrition Keys by the food industry that created them, were announced Monday by the Food Marketing Institute and the Grocery Marketing Assn. The groups say they developed the labels in response to First Lady Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign that in part calls for an easier way for shoppers, especially parents, to make informed food choices.
Yuh-huh. We’re not the only ones not buying that. According to Marion Nestle of the Food Politics blog:
There is only one explanation for this move: heading off the FDA’s Front-of-Package (FOP) labeling initiatives.
See, apparently recommendations from a team of health specialists think front-of-package labels should focus on the bad stuff, and not use the space to trumpet things like protein and fiber.
To be honest, I don’t know if any of this even matters. Last we’d heard, those calorie listings on fast foods weren’t changing people’s choices there, and we live in a calorie-obsessed society. So would seeing sodium and saturated fat on the front of a package be that much more of a deterrent?
Maybe we need to take a cue from Canada’s front-of-pack cigarette warnings. Imagine that bottle of Easy Cheese had a label on it that said “eating this will clog your arteries” along with a picture like this. Now that would get my attention, as delicious as spray cheese can be (I’m not kidding).
What do you think?
Image via LA Times
Hopefully you have already swapped out your old tampons for fragrance-, bleach-, pesticide and dye-free organic ones. But if you haven’t, you should do so now. Yes, they are more expensive, and if you’re a Keeper or Diva Cup girl, awesome.
But there’s no sense in being equivocal about this one: Tampons are things you put inside your body every single month, several times a day for several days in a row, for decades on end. Pesticides, dyes, fragrance—fragrance!—and bleach have no business in there.
And if that’s not enough to convince you, you can revisit this post, and this one.
Now for the news. We all think—and for good reason—that when we remove a tampon, that it is no longer in our body. Intuitively, this is what makes sense. But guess what?
Read this chilling (and very carefully worded, we noticed) article in the New York Times about how o.b. tampons—my former tampon of choice—have been mysteriously disappearing off shelves.
Is there a quiet recall going on? The meat of it here:
A search of the FDA’s adverse event database for medical devices [note: tampons are considered medical devices by FDA] turned up a handful of consumer reports of problems with o.b. tampons over the last five years. Such health complaints are not necessarily caused by the products cited in the reports.
The reports in the FDA database about o.b. tampons included complaints of headache, fever, nausea and abdominal pain as well as infections caused by tampon remnants remaining in the body. One complaint from last year concerned a consumer who said she had been using o.b. tampons for two years.
“Consumer saw her physician and was prescribed medication for a vaginal infection. After one day of treatment, a ‘ball of tampon threads was released from the uterus,’ ” the report said. “The consumer reported that the physician suspected that the ball consisted of ‘little pieces of tampon from over a period of time.’ ”
A spokeswoman for the FDA said the agency was “not aware of any quality control or manufacturing issues with o.b. tampons.”
We’re about to get a little activisty here. No, we don’t know for sure what’s going on with o.b. or any other tampon out there. And no, we can’t prove that the o.b.s caused fever. And no, we have no way of knowing whether or not organic bleach-free-yadda-yadda tampons are also leaving bits of cotton behind after we remove them. But if they are breaking off in small amounts inside of us, we’d still feel bad, but we’d feel a whole lot better about it knowing we weren’t also leaving behind a bunch of chemicals with it. It’s back to the why-bother principle—except it’s not wrinkles we’re talking about here.
Please, please, please, please, please change your tampons or get a reusable, nontoxic thingy like the Diva Cup (which one of our writers wrote to us about ages ago—thanks Claudia!), and please send this article to every woman you know.
Listen, I’m all for boosting consumer awareness about the dangers of cosmetics, but when I came across this featured true or false quiz on the FDA’s website this morning I couldn’t help but laugh (out loud).
Something just isn’t right if we need to have a quiz (that looks like it’s designed for school children) about all of the industry’s lies.
Let’s see how you guys do (no peeking at answers!):
Question 1. FDA MUST APPROVE ALL COSMETICS BEFORE THEY GO ON THE MARKET.
Question 2. USING MASCARA THE WRONG WAY CAN CAUSE EYE INJURIES AND INFECTIONS – EVEN BLINDNESS.
Question 3. IT’S FINE TO USE HAIR DYES ON YOUR EYEBROWS AND EYELASHES. AFTER ALL, THEY’RE HAIR, TOO.
Question 4. TATTOOS USED TO BE PERMANENT, BUT NOW LASERS ARE AN EASY, RELIABLE WAY TO ERASE THEM.
Question 5. “CRUELTY FREE” OR “NOT TESTED IN ANIMALS” MEANS THAT NO ANIMAL TESTING WAS DONE ON THE PRODUCT AND ITS INGREDIENTS.
Question 6a. IF A PRODUCT IS LABELED “ALL NATURAL” OR “ORGANIC,” IT’S PROBABLY HYPOALLERGENIC.
Question 6b. EVEN IF A PRODUCT IS LABELED “HYPOALLERGENIC,” IT MAY CONTAIN SUBSTANCES THAT CAN CAUSE ALLERGIC REACTIONS.
Question 6c. CHOOSING PRODUCTS WITH THE CLAIM “DERMATOLOGIST TESTED” IS A WAY TO AVOID AN ALLERGIC REACTION OR OTHER SKIN IRRITATION.
Sorry we don’t offer you a janky online certificate (that’s mine above!) when you’re through but here are the answers: 1. false 2. true 3. false 4. false 5. false 6a. false 6b. true 6c. false
So how did you score?
Here’s an idea: How about the FDA takes this a little bit more seriously, and actually offers a grownup response to growing consumer awareness around the industry? Just a thought.
