Are your beauty products safe? What you might not know about perfume.
What’s wrong with perfume?
“No state, federal or global authority is regulating the safety of fragrance chemicals. No state, federal or global authority even knows which fragrance chemicals appear in which products. When we took a harder look at beauty and personal care products we found that many chemicals of concern were hiding under the word ‘fragrance.”
— Janet Nudelman, policy director for Breast Cancer Prevention Partners (BCPP) and co-founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics in The Guardian, 2018
“There are chemicals in fragrances that do cause [cancer and reproductive effects], we know this from animal studies. Do people who use a lot of fragrance get more cancer than those who don’t ? No one really knows because no one has looked at that.”
— Alexandra Scranton, director of Science and Research for Women’s Voices for the Earth (WVE), a women’s health not-for-profit in The Guardian, 2018)
Why are the authorities not regulating the safetey of fragrance chemicals?
According to The Guardian, fragrance formulations fall under “trade secret” and are protected from disclosure. That’s why not even regulators or manufacturers get to know what kind of chemicals are hidden in which quantity behind the seemingly harmless ingredient “fragrance” or perfume, and there are about 4.000 chemicals currently used to scent products. Instead, the fragrance industry has been trusted to self-regulate and to develop its own safety guidelines for the use of fragrance chemicals.
As the investigative report by Women’s Voices for the Earth Most points out,
most of the basic science studies on fragrance ingredients are conducted by the manufacturers themselves and have never been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. There is no independent review of laboratory practices, appropriate controls, levels of significance or any of the hallmarks of authoritative science, to ensure that the results of these studies have not been manipulated to serve the interests of the manufacturer conducting the testing.
Fragrance chemicals make up the vast majority of chemicals linked to adverse chronic health such as cancer and hormone disruption according to study.
In 2018, Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, a science-based policy and advocacy organisation published a report that shows to what extent major companies that make beauty, personal care and cleaning products were hiding unlabelled toxic chemicals in their products. According to The Guardian, around 4000 chemicals are currently used to make products smell good and/or to mask bad smell and a single scent can contain 50 to 300 distinct chemicals. From the 140 products testes, 10 products ranked the most hazardous in terms of the highest number of chemicals linked to cancer, hormone disruption, developmental or reproductive toxicity and respiratory effects. These are the following:
Just for Me Shampoo: A children’s shampoo, from a hair-relaxing kit marketed to kids of color by Strength of Nature.
JLo Glow Perfume: A fine fragrance made by Coty and endorsed by Jennifer Lopez.
Kaboom with OxiClean Shower Tub & Tile Cleaner: Marketed as a “great cleaner that is safe and friendly to use,” made by Church & Dwight Co.
Olay Luminous Tone Body Lotion: Made by Procter & Gamble and marketed for its anti-aging qualities.
Axe Phoenix Body Spray: A body spray made by Unilever and marketed to young men using an overtly sexual ad campaign.
Marc Jacobs Daisy Perfume: Another Coty fragrance that carries the designer’s name.
Taylor Swift Wonderstruck Perfume: A Revlon fine fragrance endorsed by Taylor Swift.
Organix (OGX) Shampoo: A Johnson & Johnson product marketed as part of a “green/sustainable” line of products to young women.
Formulation 64-RP: Industrial cleaner/disinfectant used by custodians, firefighters and others.
White Linen Perfume: Created by Estée Lauder in 1978, marketed as “a beautiful perfume” for women young and old.
In the following, you can see the chronic health hazards by products. The numbers indicate the number of carcinogens, hormone disruptors, asthmagens, and developmental toxicants in each product. The report mentions, that some chemicals have more than one potential chronic health hazard, so the total number of carcinogens, hormone disruptors, respiratory toxicants, and developmental toxicants may be even higher than the total number of chemicals linked to chronic health effects.
Below, you find the most hazardous products listed again with 10 or more chemicals linked to chronic health concerns and that are linked to cancer, endocrine disruption, developmental and reproductive toxicity and asthma. The “Just for Me” shampoo targeted to kids of color have the highest amount of chemicals linked to chronic health concern among the products tested, which is very alarming. Even more alarming because the brand promotes the product as ideal for kids, giving the impression to be safe. The product with the second highest number chemicals linked to chronic health concerns is JLo Glow endorsed by Jennifer Lopez.
Products promoted as “green” have shown to contain chemicals linked to chronic health effects well.
Promotion of “green” give customers the impression that the product is safe or safer. But this does not have to be the case. In the table on the left above you might have come across the Aveda Hand Relief with 124 chemicals found of which 5 is linked to chronic health concerns. Below you see that products tested in the category green have an average of 131 chemicals per product and 7 chemicals per product is in average linked to chronic health effects. Breast Cancer Prevention Partners points out in their report that their sample is not representative of the entire market of these product category.
Products targeted to kids and to women of color have shown to have on average the highest amount of chemicals linked to chronic health effects.
As we have seen from the Top 10 list further above, Just for Me Shampoo, a children’s shampoo marketed to kids of colour by Strength of Nature not only contains the highest number of chemicals among those tested but also contain the highest number of chemicals linked to chronic health concerns and had on average the most hazardous chemicals, 60% of which were fragrance chemicals that did not appear on the label. According the study, “Advertising that promotes mainstream beauty norms and idealises images of white women may influence and increase the use by women of colour of products such as skin lighteners, hair straighteners and feminine hygiene products, many of which contain chemicals of concern.” Again, the samples are not representative of the entire market of these product category, however disturbing enough wanting to see more and extensive research conducted.
Conclusion: Skin care is in fact just like tobacco and needs regulations and comprehensive warnings.
Consumers are the ones paying for the products and they are the ones applying the products on their bodies, yet they are not entitled to know what they actually put on their bodies due to commercial confidentiality. Some pay even a huge amount because they believe in the brand promise or believe they are buying safer products, e.g. when opting for brands that promote science,/high quality ingredients or promote green/organic. When the fragrance industry is on the one hand trusted to self-regulate, on the other hand initial studies indicate that the most hazardous chemicals are hidden under the seemingly harmless term “fragrance” then the industry does not have consumer’s safety and well-being at heart. Consumers deserve transparency and comprehensive warnings in order to understand the ingredients and based on that make an informed decision. Just like it is the case with cigarettes.
So, what can consumers do?
1. Be conscious about what products you actually need and get rid of the rest
The average woman uses 12 different beauty products every day and it is highly likely that each product has fragrance/perfume in the ingredients. The best thing consumers can do first of all is to radically reduce the amount of their beauty items. What is that you could easily do without? Do you really need nail polisher, do you really need certain hair styling products like gel or spray? Do you really need perfume? I myself haven chosen to give up perfume, hair styling products and nail polisher. I hope to find a non-toxic alternative for nail polisher because i now and then I’d like to have the ballerina creamy colour.
2. Opt for products that have no fragrance or perfume or at least at the far end of the list.
Once you have reduced your beauty items to what is actually essential for your individual needs, check the ingredients. Is “perfume/fragrance” on top of the list, in the middle or in the end? If all your products happen to have perfume/fragrance at the end, then you can choose to keep them, if the criteria “at least there are the least fragrance chemicals” is sufficient for you. One indicator to know roundabout how much percentage of fragrance is included in the product is the ingredient Phenoxyethanol which is often used as a preservative and can be used up to 1%. Therefore, if perfume comes after Phenoxyethanol it is below 1%.
3. Request full ingredient list if not published Opt for products that have no fragrance or perfume or at least at the far end of the list.
If brands do not show the full ingredient list on their website then this is a conscious choice, it’s not because they have simply forgotten to include the full list. Why do brands decide not to provide consumers the transparency, regardless whether they can or want to take the time to decode the ingredients? What you can do next though is to contact the brand via e-mail or Instagram and request the full ingredient list. Sometimes you find the full ingredient list of their products on other online retailer’s sites but not on their own. The celebrity brand JLo Beauty for instance decided not to show the full ingredient list as well as IS clinical that positions its products as scientifically advanced.
4. Support brands who have chosen to be transparent about what ingredients are behind “fragrance” - and only if you consider them less hazardous
The online retailer Credo Beauty for instance promotes radical transparency.
US law does not require that companies to be transparent about the ingredients in fragrance/perfume. Credo believes in your right-to-know. We require all brands to categorise the fragrance in each product and encourage brands to fully disclose all scent ingredients.
This means the fragrance ingredients are fully disclosed on the website and not hidden behind the word "fragrance", which is the norm.
