Wow, been a while since I’ve posted. No excuses.
Have you ever heard of parabens?
Parabens are chemical preservatives used in many (MANY) cosmetics and beauty products. You will see them in the ingredient list on the back of the bottle, usually in the form of long syllablled, possibly good scrabble words like Methylparaben, Ethylparaben, p-Propylparaben, Isobutylparaben, n-Butylparaben and Benzylparaben. These chemicals are extremely common in soaps, lotions, hair products, shaving products, deoderants and make up. Really, just about any cosmetic you can think of. Don’t believe me? Go to your bathroom and start reading labels. Even some of your organic and all natural products may contain parabens.
Well then what’s so bad about a paraben or two?
Simply put… turns out parabens are hormone disrupters that mimic the effect of estrogen and are possibly carcinogenic. A 2004 study published by the Journal of Applied Toxicology found traces of five parabens in the breastcancer tumors of 19 out of 20 women studied. There have been quite a few similar studies done, all finding parabens in cancerous tissues.
But I don’t eat my cosmetics, even though sometimes they smell yummy enough to eat. So how do the parabens actually get in my body to harm me?
They soak right through our skin and into our bloodstream! And, since the parabens aren’t being ingested and consequently broken down somewhat by our livers, the chemicals are entering our body at full effect. The FDA claims that the small percentage of parabens contained in cosmetics is not enough to cause any ill effects on the human body. And while this may even be true, the paraben problem is not just about the cosmetics we use on ourselves. Parabens go down the bathroom drain and straight into the water supply. Water treatment plants are unable to remove the parabens from our water, so we just re-ingest these icky chemicals. Over time, it would make sense that the concentration of parabens in our lives and bloodstreams will increase exponentially and eventually reach a level that the FDA will deem harmful.
There are many companies that understand the potential hazards of parabens and use suitable, naturally occurring preservatives instead. Vitamin E, grapefruit seed extract and essential oils like lemon, lavender, and tea tree oil are the most common natural preservatives used in cosmetics. READ YOUR LABELS BEFORE BUYING. That is the best way to become part of the solution to the paraben problem. Organic and natural cosmetics are not necessarily paraben-free, so be careful. Two years ago I read about parabens for the first time, got freaked out, and began to phase them out of my cosmetic regimen. I was definitely upset to see parabens in my most trusted beauty products, and in some cases I didn’t want to let go. Women, you know what I mean. How long have you been using the same face scrub and after finally finding something that works, are scared to change? Finding my fave paraben-free cosmetics has really been fun though. Not like raging music festival, dance party with my friends fun. But a journey of the senses ending in better smelling hair and cleaner skin.
There are definitely other harmful chemicals found in cosmetics. Enough for quite a few more blog posts. Fortunately, there is a great website set up by the Environmental Working Group called the Skin Deep Database (www.cosmeticsdatabase.com). This site has a ton of information about all sorts of icky, toxic crap found in our everyday cosmetics. And, they’ve also ranked more than 25,000 products, giving scores from 1-10 based on the toxicity level. Try looking up your must trusted products to see how they measure up.
A thought to leave you with (from my growing collection of powerful song lyrics)…
“Am I part of the cure, or am i part of the disease?”
-Coldplay, “Clocks”
This is an FDA article explaining their point of view on parabens and why they do not regulate the use of these chemicals.
Reference article:
Excellent! And nice to know we are like-minded. Keep up the good work!
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Comment by caitmin June 16, 2008 @ 12:34 pmThanks for keeping us educated about these dangerous chemicals!
Comment by phil June 22, 2008 @ 5:39 pmi’ve never heard it described better. thanks!
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