The ingredients used in the products we rub on our skin, dab around our eyes, spray on our bodies, and massage into our scalp are—for the most part—unregulated. There isn’t a federal agency in charge of checking to make sure that these chemicals and finished beauty products are safe for long or short term use. In fact, approximately 80% of the ingredients used in cosmetics and personal care products have never been tested for safety on human health.
Here’s a little primer on how we got into this mess and what we can do to transition towards a safer, saner world.
Are the laws regulating beauty products up-to-date?
The last time Congress passed a major law addressing chemicals used in cosmetics and personal care products was… (drumroll)… 1938. The Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act (FDCA) was passed in the 1930s and gave all control to cosmetics companies to determine if the chemicals they use are safe. So it’s pretty much a free for all. In the meantime our understanding of the potential health effects of certain chemicals used in cosmetics has grown exponentially, and the scientific literature is alarming.
(Read here for information outlining the health effects of chemicals on chronic disease.)
For a little perspective, this is a cosmetics ad from 1938
What does the law do (if anything)?
The law does very little to ensure chemicals used in cosmetics and personal care products are safe. It doesn’t require testing of cosmetic chemicals before going to market, it doesn’t ensure your products are safe before they are rubbed on your body or the skin of your child, and it’s widely criticized by the public health community as ineffective and grossly out-of-date.
The FDA sums up the weakness of the law here,
Cosmetic products and ingredients are not subject to FDA premarket approval authority, with the exception of color additives.”
How does this differ from the the Toxic Substances Control Act?
The primary law regulating chemicals in the U.S., the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), is supposed to ensure chemicals used in every other product sector and manufacturing are safe. But like the cosmetics law, TSCA was passed nearly four decades ago and does very little to regulate chemicals used in our building products, household cleaners, children’s toys, couches and other consumer products.
TSCA is considered the primary federal law governing chemicals, is housed at the EPA and governs all industrial chemicals in consumer products and manufacturing processes (household cleaners, couches, clothing, children’s toys, etc). Whereas the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act is a smaller—yet still important—law regarding the safety of the following product categories: cosmetics, food storage containers, and pharmaceuticals. Both laws are important and both must be strengthened to better protect public health.
Why hasn’t Congress updated our laws on toxic chemicals?
It seems absurd that we have two broken statues on toxic chemicals in consumer products, with little to no action from Congress. Based on my decade worth of experience working to create policy change, I can say a few factors are playing into Congressional inaction.
- First, people assume the government is already looking out for our safety and don’t know this is a problem.
- Second, the chemical industry spends millions of dollars each year to fight regulation of toxic chemicals.
- Third, Congress needs to hear from us on an ongoing basis that we want reform of our broken laws on toxic chemicals. Politicians must “feel the heat” and know there will be a price to pay come election time if they fail to take action to protect our health.
There is good news, in the last five years there has been an up swell of momentum to regulate toxic chemicals in consumer products and cosmetics. Leadership from campaigns like Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has tremendously moved these fights forward.
Want to take action? Text “BetterBeauty” to 52886, and you can email your Members of Congress to ask them for more health protective laws on beauty products.
Check out my personal recommendations for safer beauty products HERE.
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Hi!
I want to use your information for a paper I’m doing, but I don’t know where to find your sources. Could you direct me to them, or send me direct links of the ones pertaining to this particular post (The Ugly Truth About Chemicals in Cosmetics Pt. 1)?
Thank you!
–Carolyn McBride
Hi Carolyn,
Can you please send me an email via my contact form with the specific parts you would like sources for? Thank you!
Perhaps the author should inform herself as to the process by which the cosmetics industry has established and maintained safety in use and the record of safety that process has established. The US cosmetics industry has the best record of safety of any consumer product – certainly better than products regulated by the EPA under TSCA and better than drugs and foods – both closely regulated by FDA. In fact, the cosmetics industry has worked with congress to codify what they are already doing in this regard.
Of course the author is techncially ignorant – esp. of risk assessment process upon which EPA and FDA base their assessment and regulation of relevant products, the same risk assessment used by the cosmetics industry and completely ignored by scare-mongering, self-promotional NGO’s. This ignorance combined with a blind faith in government (it should all work as well as VA, IRS, OMP, etc.), accepting as gospel the silliness of self-promotional NGO’s and the ego of posing as a savior establishes this article as useless propaganda.
I appreciate you leaving a comment and engaging in a dialogue, despite your disrespectful tone. Sure the cosmetics industry may have a good track record with complying with federal laws, it’s because there hardly are any to follow! The FDA doesn’t have a risk assessment process for determining which ingredients in cosmetics are safe, which is the whole point of this article. Finally, I have not toted a blind faith in government. There are many examples where our federal regulatory agencies have let down the American public, but I don’t take that as a reason to let a self-regulating industry continue to put harmful ingredients in the products we use everyday. You don’t have to take my word for it, take the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, the Endocrine Society, the CDC, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists and hundreds of academic institutions positions on this topic.