Label salon products to disclose health risks

Imagine that your favorite hair product’s label read, “Warning: may cause infertility,” or listed “formaldehyde,” a cancercausing embalming fluid, as an ingredient. Whatever our products contain, you and I remain blissfully ignorant of our exposure and risk because professional cleaning and salon products often do not label their ingredients (although our hair probably looks fabulous).

The Legislature is debating AB1575 and SB258, two bills to improve labeling for salongrade nail polish, shampoos and hair coloring, cosmetics and skin cleaning products, as well as toothpaste, household cleaning products and automotive industry cleaning products. If you or your loved ones use these products, you should ask your representative to ensure the bills pass. Let me tell you why.

Unlike medications, commercial chemicals undergo little, if any, testing before being introduced into our world. Currently, 9.5 trillion pounds of commercial chemicals pass annually through the United States: enough to dump a new 14-ton sack of industry-grade mystery dust on each American’s pillow each night of each year. Though some may temporarily irritate the skin and lungs, many are endocrine-disrupting chemicals like diethylstilbestrol, or DES, that disrupt our hormone systems and cause disease even in low doses.

The story of DES is one well-studied, notorious example of chemical harms. It was prescribed during the Baby Boom era to prevent pregnancy miscarriage, and is now linked to infertility, obesity and cancer in women who were exposed to this drug in the womb. New data suggest that even the grandchildren of women prescribed DES bear higher disease risks. Chemicals like DES can change the ways that inherited genes are turned on and off, their negative effects to ripple through our genes for generations.

Though industry does respond to public concern, poor transparency remains problematic. Take bisphenol A, or BPA. We know that BPA negatively affects adult fertility and babies’ neurologic development, so “BPA-free” stickers helped companies market their products to safety-aware consumers. While we were looking for stickers, BPA was merely replaced with similar chemicals.

Similarly, the so-called “Toxic Trio” (formaldehyde, toluene, dibutyl phthalate) found in numerous nail polishes prompted companies to claim their product was toxin free. A 2012 report by the California Environmental Protection Agency revealed that these claims were often false.

Some will complain that change is onerous. Surely, products often contain many ingredients, and chemical names read like over-hyphenated alphabet soup. It can be a confusing list. But this is not cause to conceal information. A legal requirement of disclosure will help to ensure the manufacture of safer, faithfully-labeled products.

Moreover, there are solutions. Small pictograms, such as a picture of a pregnant woman with an overlying “X,” will cut through the confusion and convey a message as clear as the modern skull and crossbones. In some cases, that may be appropriate too.

Keep our communities safe and informed. Tell your representative that you vote for transparency.