Clean Personal Care
When we think about “going clean” or reducing chemicals in our daily lives, we often think of food. That makes sense — food plays such an important role in our lives that it’s easy for it to become a focus. Perhaps you buy organic produce and try to focus on buying fewer pre-packaged and frozen foods.
What you might not be thinking about are the ingredients in your cosmetic, skin care and personal care products — but you should be.
While you’re not meant to ingest your lotions, creams, exfoliants, body washes, or makeup, the ingredients used to make them still matter. Here’s why you should pay close attention to the ingredient lists, what the common ingredients are, and which ones you should definitely avoid.
Why We Should Care About Personal Care Ingredients
If you’re in the practice of reading the ingredient labels of the food you buy, you should also get in the habit of reading the ingredient labels on all your personal care items — perfumes, lotions, soaps, shaving cream, sunscreen, makeup, and skin care products.
The importance of the ingredient list stems from the fact that it only takes 30 seconds for your skin to absorb anything you put on it. From there, some of those ingredients — the good, the bad, and the ugly — may end up in your bloodstream.
Environmental Impact
In addition to the bodily harm some of the ingredients in beauty products and personal care items can do, they can also cause major damage to the environment. Perhaps one of the more well-known ingredients being microbeads.
“Microbeads are tiny plastic balls that are used in personal care products like cleansers, face scrubs, exfoliants, and lotions. Microbeads are so small that they are not caught by wastewater treatment facilities. Therefore, they are discharged directly into our rivers and lakes,” says Anjali Hardikar, a cosmetic chemist and consultant for Antrim Cosmetic Solutions.
Once they’re in the water, their impact is far from over.
“Microbeads absorb many dangerous pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic compounds that are already present in marine environments. Fish often mistake them for food, causing their death.”
Fortunately, the is clearing up some of that negative impact. As of July 1, 2019, microbeads are no longer allowed to be introduced into cosmetics or OTC prescription medications. However, it will take some time for all of these products to make their way out of the supply chain. It’s still important to check the ingredient list to make sure there are no microbeads in your personal care products.
What’s In Your Personal Care Products?
As much as it might feel like reading a different language, it’s important to read all of the ingredients listed on the bottles of your skincare and personal care products and try to understand what they are. Many of them are relatively harmless (assuming you aren’t allergic to them), and to help keep skin hydrated, reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, and clean dirt and oil out of your pores.
However, there are some common ingredients that are linked to health conditions ranging in seriousness from skin irritation to cancer.
Formaldehyde
Formaldehyde and formaldehyde releasers (bronopol, DMDM hydantoin, diazolidinyl urea, imidazolidinyl urea, and quaternium-15) are commonly used as preservatives. This ingredient can be found in cosmetics such as eyelash glue, hair gels and sprays, nail polish, some soaps, and some baby shampoos.
Formaldehyde has been in some groups of people — typically in workers who manufacture goods containing formaldehyde and in healthcare workers who use it for preservation and embalming.
Phthalates
Phthalates are widely used for multiple different purposes, including as an agent to make plastic more flexible, a fragrance additive, and as solvents. There are many different types of phthalates, and they are very prevalent in a wide variety of personal care products, such as hair care, nail polish, perfumes, soaps, and baby products.
, phthalates have been linked to asthma, ADHD, neurodevelopmental issues, breast cancer, type 2 diabetes, male fertility issues and , altered reproductive development, and much more.
Studies have shown that infants exposed to typical infant care products, specifically baby shampoos, baby lotions, and baby powder, showed increased levels of metabolites in their urine. As infants are so vulnerable to the effects of hazardous chemicals, choosing less toxic, more natural baby care products only makes sense.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by any of this information, fear not. You can enter all the ingredients on your personal care product labels into the search feature on to understand more about their safety.
What are Sulfates?
Sulfates are surfactants often used in cleansing products, such as body wash, facial cleansers, laundry detergent, hand soap, and shampoo. The good thing about them is that they break down dirt and oil — obviously, this is great for washing really dirty clothes, dishes, and even surfaces.
One of the most common sulfates is SLS (sodium laurel sulfate), which is what gives soap its bubbly lather. However, it’s important to note that lather is not imperative to cleansing — it makes us feel like it’s cleaning better, but SLS doesn’t make soap more effective.
However, the attribute that makes sulfates so effective at breaking down oils is exactly the attribute that can irritate the skin because it strips the protective oils we need. Additionally, sometimes the sulfate SLES (sodium laureth sulfate) contains 1,4-dioxane.
Are sulfates bad?
On the surface, sulfates may not be particularly harmful, but because of the potential contaminants (like 1,4-dioxane), it’s best to steer clear of sulfates when possible. It would be more important to prioritize sulfate-free products for facial cleanser, shampoo and body wash, which all come into contact with sensitive skin areas, such as the face and scalp.
Furthermore, it’s best to avoid sulfates in products if it will be absorbed by the skin or will spend a significant amount of time on the skin, such as deodorant, body lotions, shave cream, sunscreen, or facial moisturizers. Because babies and toddlers have particularly sensitive skin, it’s best to avoid sulfates in any product that will be applied to their skin.
What are Parabens?
Parabens have been making the news more lately as some brands are making a commitment to stop using them in their skincare and personal care products. Depending on who you talk to, parabens can be classified as “bad” or “ugly” on the scale of good, bad, and ugly. Not many people will say they’re entirely harmless.
Parabens are preservatives used in thousands of personal care and skincare products, such as lotions, creams, shampoos, conditioners, hand soaps, body wash, facial cleansers, moisturizers, and deodorants. They are used in topical creams and medications of all kinds. They are known to be . Especially for products that absorb into the skin (like creams and deodorant), parabens can cause all kinds of health issues.
“Once inside the body, that parabens are believed to interfere with hormone function by mimicking the female reproductive hormone, estrogen,” says Jessica Rose, beauty expert with . “Excess estrogen can potentially trigger the growth of tumors and increase breast cell division. That’s why parabens have been associated with reproductive issues and breast cancer.”
More research is needed to discover the potential long-term effects of paraben use and absorption, but in the short-term parabens can also cause skin irritation or rashes.
What is Clean Beauty?
For all of these reasons and more, we’re starting to see a greater prevalence of . Oftentimes, this means the product is free of sulfates, parabens, BPA (Bisphenol-A, often found in plastic), formaldehyde, and other chemicals that have been linked to negative health outcomes.
The most important thing to remember when searching for clean beauty products is to read the ingredient labels and be able to understand them. Even when you buy products online, you should be able to view an ingredient list to see what’s in the product.
It’s always a good idea to pull up the database to look up everything you find that you’re not already familiar with. One way to assure yourself that ingredients are safe is to use EWG Verified products or to look for the seal.
Remember that natural and naturally sourced ingredients are always preferred over synthetic, but that if you do find a synthetic ingredient, the lower the toxicity, the better.
According to , “the best answer for ‘clean’ beauty products is to do with less. The average woman is exposed to hundreds of ingredients on a daily basis. The majority of these are from skincare products that are totally unnecessary.”
While many brick and mortar stores are now offering natural beauty and personal care options, the good news is that you can also purchase them online. It’s never been easier than it is right now to find clean products. In fact, in our Wellevate platform — over 1,000 clean personal care products from over 90 different brands are available from Emerson Ecologics.
Government Regulation on Personal Care Products
The last major law passed by Congress regarding cosmetics was the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938. The and the were both introduced into the House of Representatives by Illinois Representative Janice Schakowsky, but neither got out of committee.
In 2019, Senators Dianne Feinstein (CA) and Susan Collins (ME) introduced the , which would have required the FDA to review at least five common ingredients per year to determine their safety and possible uses. The first five were diazolidinyl urea, diethyl phthalate, methylene glycol/formaldehyde, propylparaben, and quaternium-15. But like the others introduced in the House, the bill didn’t go anywhere.
While the personal care and cosmetic industry has boomed over the past century, U.S. law hasn’t exactly kept up. It’s not as if the industry has carte-blanche — they don’t. There are regulations in place that force companies to list the ingredients in every personal care or cosmetic product that is sold to the public, and there are that are strictly forbidden. By contrast, Europe has banned more than in cosmetics alone.
Fragrance
One of the biggest issues that can’t be solved by reading the ingredient label has to do with the scent of the product. In many cases, the ingredient label lists one word to describe the scent: “fragrance.”
Now, the intention here is to protect business and trademark secrets. We don’t expect Versace or Chanel to tell us what’s in our favorite perfume — doing so would give away the secret to every product in their fragrance line. There would be copycats abound and they’d lose the corner on that market.
However, this law has been applied more broadly than just with fragrance companies. Products classified as “cosmetics” are allowed to off the label.
“This is often the only ingredient on the chemistry-lab ingredients list that you can actually read and understand,” Mahalli says. But that doesn’t mean it’s a “good” thing. “‘Fragrance’ is not an ingredient; it’s a loophole for cosmetics companies to label anything from scent to color. Seeing as you don’t know exactly what ‘fragrance’ consists of, you should steer clear of it in your skincare products.”
Due to public pressure, some companies are beginning to move toward greater transparency of their fragrances, such as Proctor and Gamble, who , they would make fragrance ingredients available online for some of their major brands, including Tide, Herbal Essences, Febreeze and Olay.
It’s important to keep in mind that the FDA doesn’t have regulatory power over allergens and irritants in cosmetics. You may be allergic to something in a specific cologne, but unable to figure out what it is because you’re not allergic to anything on the ingredient label. In that case, you’ll simply have to stay away from it as much as possible.
Feminine Care and Sexual Health
Perhaps one of the most important areas of our bodies where we need to carefully choose our personal care products is with feminine hygiene and sexual health. Products like condoms, personal lubricants, tampons, and sanitary napkins are among the types of products that are not required to disclose their ingredients.
We really love the brand Good Clean Love for their commitment to natural, organic ingredients. They don’t use any kind of petrochemical, paraben, or synthetic glycerin. Their focus from the very beginning has been about feminine hygiene and sexual health products that are both gentle and effective.
In terms of feminine care, there are more clean, natural options now than ever before. Companies like and are creating products made from organic cotton and are listing actual ingredients on their boxes.
Alternatively, there are products such as menstrual cups (made from silicone, latex, or rubber) and underwear (typically made from cotton, polyester, and elastane) that are reusable, requiring them to be made of more sturdy materials. While they might take some getting used to, they’re not disposable, which means they’re much better for the en vironment. In addition, studies have shown that these products are as sanitary napkins and tampons.
Going Clean with Skincare and Personal Care
There are hundreds of reasons to go clean with a skincare routine and personal care products, but perhaps the best one is the desire to put fewer toxins in our bodies. And according to experts, the less extra “stuff” we’re putting on our bodies, the better.
Are you interested in learning more about clean beauty and personal care items? Check out these articles with additional pro tips: