‘CLEAN’ BEAUTY
A movement emerges to serve those shunning makeup chemicals, but what do scientists say?
Skincare sets wrapped in millennial pink and eco-green fill Instagram ads this season. With their pore-refining promises, these would-be stocking-stuffers draw attention to “toxic chemicals” canceled by clean-living proponents in the past few years.
Face masks with parabens? Don’t even think about it, the gospel of Goop preaches. Body lotions with mineral oils? Definitely not on Beautycounter’s “nice” list.
But trying to understand the rationale behind these decrees can be more complicated than applying liquid eyeliner in an airplane bathroom.
Experts and industry veterans say the muddy reality of the billion-dollar clean beauty movement — which drove a 27 percent increase in skincare alone this year — is that terms such as “natural” and “organic” are essentially meaningless and unregulated, and the much-hyped health risks of several chemical ingredients are based on questionable data.
“There is kind of a chemophobia in the U.S. — if it’s a chemical, a man-made chemical, it must be bad,” said Curtis Klaassen, former president of the Society of Toxicology and chair of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics at the Kansas University Medical Center.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit advocacy organization that’s a leader of the clean cosmetics crusade, says that even if it’s impossible to directly prove these ingredients cause cancer, people should believe the most pilloried chemicals are bad for you based on reviews of research.
Nneka Leiba, EWG’s director of healthy living science, argues that outside of smoking, there is rarely “definitive proof ” that a chemical causes cancer, but there is an overall burden on the body from chemicals in personal care products. Some of these chemicals are also present in the environment, but at least with cosmetics, “you have the choice not to buy that product,” she said.
That sensibility confounds those who say the adage “the dose makes the poison” is one of the basic principles of toxicology. Klaassen compares it to the wind: Gusts of a few miles per hour are harmless, yet those reaching 100 mph can topple a house.
“The average person wants a yes/no for every chemical, and they don’t think about the dose,” Klaassen said. “It turns out that 50 percent of the chemicals in the world we think are carcinogens if you’re given enough.”
The need for more regulation
The back and forth on ingredient safety has been enabled in part by the relative low levels of U.S. regulation on the cosmetics industry — something many industry veterans and activists alike deem problematic.
For Nicolette Leung, 32, who primarily buys natural products after starting a cleanliving transition a few years ago, the difference between the more rigorous regulations of countries such as the European Union and those in the USA gave her pause. Leung says she’s privileged to be able to make natural products a priority, though she says it hasn’t necessarily made navigating beauty aisles any easier.
“Even with natural beauty products it’s confusing,” Leung said. “I think the entire industry is confusing and opaque.”
“The truth is that there are no regulations around the term ‘clean beauty,’ ” said Paula Begoun, who launched cult-favorite beauty line Paula’s Choice in 1995. “It typically means minimal to no synthetic ingredients and the absence of any ingredient deemed controversial, even if there’s valid research attesting to the ingredient’s safety as used in cosmetics.”
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversees cosmetics, which legally must be safe for consumers to use as directed and properly labeled. Unlike food and drugs, they do not need FDA preapproval before going to market.
Claims that companies are free to do whatever they want, legally filling products with known harmful ingredients, are not true. Certain ingredients are banned — lead acetate, which is found in some men’s hair dyes, was added to that list late last month. The FDA has long tracked reports on exposure and “adverse event” complaints on products, says Linda Katz, director of FDA’s Office of Cosmetics and Colors.
“Most chemicals that have been used in cosmetics have a long history of safe use and have not been the subject of major concern,” she said.
The cosmetics industry, through the Personal Care Products Council (PCPC), sought to assuage consumers’ concerns by creating the Cosmetic Ingredient Review
“THE AVERAGE PERSON WANTS A YES/NO FOR EVERY CHEMICAL, AND THEY DON’T THINK ABOUT THE DOSE. IT TURNS OUT THAT 50 PERCENT OF THE CHEMICALS IN THE WORLD WE THINK ARE CARCINOGENS IF YOU’RE GIVEN ENOUGH.”
CURTIS KLAASSEN, former president of the Society of Toxicology and chair of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics at the Kansas University Medical Center.
(CIR) committee in 1976 in coordination with the FDA. The independent panel of scientists issues reports on safety risks, which are taken into consideration by the FDA and the industry. (Klaassen is a member of CIR.)
Critics say that selfpolicing method is not enough. EWG and Breast Cancer Prevention Partners (BCPP) run websites with their own determinations on safety. EWG was among the groups petitioning the FDA to ban lead acetate.
The Goop effect
Gwyneth Paltrow’s
Goop, Jessica Alba’s
Honest Company and Beautycounter have made highly publicized movements away from synthetic ingredients to natural alternatives, touting never-use lists of a thousand or more. The strategy has backfired in some high-profile cases. Alba’s natural sunscreen was widely panned because it didn’t protect skin from burning and led to lawsuits, and her baby wipes and baby powder were recalled last year because of mold and contamination of microorganisms, respectively. Beautycounter recalled its Nourishing Day Cream because of bacteria last year.
Goop and Beautycounter say they err on the side of caution with their products.
“We believe that you can make beautiful, efficacious products without customers needing to worry about unsafe levels of toxins in their products,” said Susan Beck, Goop’s senior vice president of science and research.
Lindsay Dahl, vice president of Social and Environmental Responsibility at Beautycounter, argues the demand for hard evidence of cancer or hormone disruption is misguided.
“If there’s opportunity for us to prevent exposure to some of these ingredients we should do everything we can to do so,” Dahl says.
Much of the focus of clean beauty proponents such as Beautycounter has been on preservatives, namely parabens, a family of chemicals used to prevent the growth of mold or bacteria, and formaldehydereleasers, a type of preservative that slowly releases a small amount of formaldehyde in products to kill or prevent the growth of bacteria and microorganisms.
Linda Loretz, PCPC’s chief toxicologist, says preservatives have an important safety function that’s gotten lost in the discussion. Contamination is a frequent cause of recalls, she says.
“Without them you would either be keeping products in the refrigerator or rebuying them all the time because you’d be constantly throwing out contaminated products,” Loretz said.
The FDA says there’s no evidence of human harm from parabens in cosmetics, and CIR has repeatedly found formaldehyde-releasing preservatives to be safe in the very low percentages found in cosmetics. Yet almost all are on “baddies” lists, in industry parlance.
Jay Ansell, a chemist and board-certified toxicologist who serves as vice president of cosmetic programs at PCPC, says this discrepancy often results from organizations taking data developed for one application — such as morticians’ use of formaldehyde — and applying it across the board.
“That’s not really relevant in our opinion to a formaldehyde-releaser, which may result in a few parts per billion in a product, as opposed to an occupational exposure in high concentrations every day for a lifetime,” Ansell said.
Connie Engel, manager of science translation for BCPP, says it should all be taken into account when “making a best guess of what is true but also what is potentially protective of people’s health.”
For consumers such as Leung, shopping decisions are more about peace of mind than a frenetic fear of disease.
“I kind of look at it as a similar analogy to cooking,” Leung says. “Maybe preservatives aren’t going to kill you, but if I can know what all the ingredients are then that just makes me feel more secure.”
Driving change: Women of color
There’s industry-wide consensus on the potential harm of some ingredients, including hair-straightening products that release formaldehyde into the air when heated and specific uses of skin-bleaching agents. Those historically have affected women of color disproportionately compared to white women, in part because they are used in products that change hair and skin texture to conform with Western beauty standards.
Part of the rise in natural beauty has been driven by communities of color looking outside mainstream beauty to brands tailored to their skin and hair types and by immigrant communities seeking products of cultural importance, which are often natural.
“There’s a mythology of the Whole Foods soccer mom and affluent white women, but a lot of this is also driven by communities of color who are not necessarily affluent who are making really important choices for themselves and their families,” said Christine Keihm, senior vice president of marketing for Nubian Heritage.
Nubian Heritage cofounders Richelieu Dennis, Nyema Tubman and Mary Dennis have focused their 20-year-old brand on things such as shea butter and African black soap common in their family home of Liberia. There’s been a welcome uptick in research around those types of ingredients, making them easier to use in skincare products, said Ozohu Adoh, founder and CEO of Epara, a luxury skincare line tailored to women of color that recently launched in the U.S.
“The things that our African grandmothers told us, those kind of folklore or folktales, we now are starting to understand the scientific underpinnings of those claims they used to make,” Adoh said.
Room for agreement
The benefit of research on all potential ingredients, and the need for more of it, is another unifier in the beauty world.
The FDA announced plans this month to conduct a web-based survey about allergens in cosmetics, with aims of helping the agency better understand consumer decisions, perceptions and allergen awareness.
Most people “want to know what the facts are, and the problem is we don’t know exactly,” said Dr. Lynn A. Drake, a dermatology faculty member at Massachusetts General Hospital and lecturer at Harvard Medical School.
Drake cites the need for more legitimate controlled clinical trials and transparency with ingredients. All of which goes a long way to clear up consumer confusion and build trust.
“It’s easy to trivialize some things like cosmetics. Is your lipstick as important as the pill for your heart?” she asks. “But little do we know that down the line one of these products might have something in it that could harm you.”
“EVEN WITH NATURAL BEAUTY PRODUCTS IT’S CONFUSING. I THINK THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY IS CONFUSING AND OPAQUE.”
NICOLETTE LEUNG, who primarily buys natural products after starting a clean-living transition a few years ago