Unsightly doubts raise a blemish on ‘clean’ cosmetics
Goop and others profit by shunning makeup chemicals, but experts question their claims
The Food and Drug Administration 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 approval before going to market.
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 Beauty-counter’s “nice” list. Trying to understand the rationale behind these decrees can be more complicated than applying liquid eyeliner in an airplane bathroom.
Experts and industry veterans said the muddy reality of the billion-dollar clean beauty movement – which drove a 27 percent increase in skin care alone this year – is that terms such as “natural” and “organic” are essentially meaningless and unregulated, and the muchhyped 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