Here’s a website to scare the living Bejesus out of you, especially if you applied too much makeup today or washed your hair with any of the hundreds of well known Shampoo products out there.
The Skin Deep safety guide to cosmetics and personal care products pairs ingredients in more than 41,000 products against 50 definitive toxicity and regulatory databases, making it the largest integrated data resource of its kind. It then provides a hazard rating for each product. Skin Deep is managed by researchers at the Environmental Working Group and is a non-profit website.
You’ll be shocked by the number of reputable products that have a high hazard rating. Although Skin Deep is a US website, many products mentioned are also available in Canada and I wouldn’t be surprised if Health Canada is as bad as the US FDA in terms of taking any action towards reducing the amounts of carcinogenic chemicals in products.
I used this website for a paper I did on the origins and production of mascara and was horrified.
Thanks so much! I’m surprised that L’Oreal is there.
over the past few years , milk , coffee , etc will all give you cancer. its getting quite absurd frankly.
Doesn’t surprise me everything gives ”you” cancer.
Just like how everythings bad when your pregnant, including breathing.
I could’ve saved myself a lot of money in trial and error if I’d had this website decades ago! Turns out I now use things that are low in toxicity because my body has rejected the others.
Everything kills. Remember, every day you live takes a day off your life. That’s the motivational message of the day. 😉
Thanks Boo for supplying me with a new excuse for the next time I don’t want to go out with someone! lol. 😛
I took a look at the website….looked up Clinique products…and well, looks like everything causes cancer and I’m pretty SCREWED.
Really though, they don’t list (or know) some pretty essential information:
1. the amount of the ‘dangerous’ ingredient found in the product (chances are they won’t know that)
2. they don’t state anywhere on the ingredient description what is considered a hazardous level of the ingredient!!
ie. Arsenic is leached out of our lights and people aren’t freaking out… That’s because it’s at such an inconsquential dose you don’t have to worry.
3. They list a bunch of references which are not recent (excepting the primary paper). Someone was lazy.
4. From the stuff I saw, they did not provide alternatives to the ingredients they considered hazardous.
Even if everyone tried to use natural alternatives for certain ingredients in makeup, the animal activists and enviromentalists will start bitching because of the inevitable strain on our wildlife and natural resources blah blah blah………
Meh, I’ll keep using my makeup. At least I’ll die looking good.
I looked at the site. I picked a shampoo I was familiar with. Under citric acid it had this:
Violations, restrictions & warnings, Neurotoxicity, Organ system toxicity (non-reproductive)
Okay, that is just stupid. Citric acid. The stuff in oranges that are good for you??? Can cause neurotoxicity. I don’t believe scare-mongering sites like this for this reason.
I currently have a subscription to Canadian Chemical News, and reading this post reminds me of an excellent article that I read.
In this article, by Joe Schwarz (former director of McGill University’s Office for Chemistry and Society), Dr. Schwarz responds to concerned e-mails with respect to dioxanes and formaldehyde found in shampoo.
Below is an excerpt of Dr. Schwarcz’s page 12 article from May 2009 of Canadian Chemical News (I am not sure if I am infringing on copyright laws, so please feel free to remove this post if I am). Please read it before jumping to any conclusions. It is good to be an informed consumer, but you also must remember to keep information in context:
“A study of over 2000 people of all ages [who used the shampoo], randomly selected, has failed to detect any dioxane in their blood. So what’s our bottom line? Exposure to trace amounts of formaldehyde or dioxane from cosmetic products is not a big worry. If we’re going to get all antsy about such things, we might as well worry about, well, chicken soup!
That’s right. My chicken soup is loaded with carcinogens. Not man-made additives, but naturally occurring compounds. Furocoumarins like 8-methoxypsoralen are present in parsnips and celery. Not only are they potential carcinogens, they can cause nasty skin reactions. Carrots contain caffeic acid, another carcinogen. I commonly add basil, which contains estragole, a known rodent carcinogen. The same can be said for alpha-methylpyrroline in black pepper. I’m sure an analysis of my cooked chicken would reveal some heterocyclic aromatic amines, nasty carcinogens. And then there is the formaldehyde. It occurs naturally in the onions and shiitake mushrooms I use to flavour the soup, In fact, shiitake mushrooms, can have a whopping 400 parts per million of formaldehyde!
What is the point here? To trigger headlines about toxic chicken soup? Of course not. We need to realize that we are constantly exposed to thousands and thousands of chemicals on a daily basis, both natural and synthetic. Some whether natural or synthetic, have the ability to trigger cancer under certain conditions. But the nature of those conditions is critical. The risk to an embalmer working with a concentrated formaldehyde solution day in and day out, or to a rodent reared on formaldehyde laced drinking water, is not the same as that to a human exposed to traces of formaldehyde in a shampoo. and I don’t worry one bit about the formaldehyde I’m ingesting in my soup, even though I bet my exposure is far greater than from any shampoo.”
Yeah this site puts more of a scare into you than anything else. I checked my shampoos and got an overall 6 on the hazard scale. Deo and toothpaste got 4. Anyhoo I think it’s safe to say that unless you’re off the grid and living off all natural (non-processed in any way) organic products, nobody can be 100% insulated against all the chemicals we live in, use and consume every day. Good to get the information out, though it is very scientific. But in moderation it should be ok.
i looked up under makeup and find it quite surprising that most mineral makeup (example: Everyday Minerals, Pyshicians Formula etc.) are quite toxic. i thought they were the most natural type of makeup available in the market right now.
um okay like 60% of the products ar ead for you even some all natural products have a rating of 8/10 on the toxicity scale….
are bad*
I use “bronzer” as the keyword for my search. It turns out that most bronzers are harmful (7+). And the least harmful ones seems to have incomplete ingredient list (only 5 ingredients??). So I guess in order to avoid the health concerns, some companies may have omitted crucial ingredients. I am also curious what other preservatives are safe enough to substitute paraben. However, the website does provide lots of insights to the cosmetic industries. Thanx!!
What surprised me most were all of the childrens shampoo/bath products with high toxcity ratings. Very surprised that Pureology was at the top of the list as well. i paid $40 for a bottle of that stuff a couple years back because it was touted as being the gentlest shampoo for coloured hair at the time.
I’ve known about mascara for quite a while.. even tried using Afterglow, only non-mercury brand i know of, but wasnt happy with it. So i still use my regular mascara but not as often as i did.
I’m trying to switch to more natural alternatives. This just gave me more insentive.
Thanks boo! 🙂
I think for the every day person, using these products is just fine. But more and more people are developing allergies and sensitivities to many of the ingredients in these products. It is what started me developing my own company dedicated to a more natural product. There are some chemicals that MUST be used in bath and body products, to protect the consumer from even worse nasties (like preservatives, there are some natural ones out there, but preservatives work like antibiotics so many times multiple preservatives must be used depending on the product).
Kimberlea- there are many paraben free preservatives out there, but the problem is that they are very expensive. While there hasn’t been a direct link between parabens and cancer (remember that correlation does not equal causation….rapes in the summer increase along with ice cream sales, that doesn’t mean selling ice cream causes rapes to increase) people are willing to jump on the cancer bus concerning this.
Oh, and people LOVE bubbles. They don’t think that the product is working without bubbles/lather, unfortunately that means adding SLS or SLSA. One of the big bad nasties.
Also, in soap making, the more bubbles in a natural bar, the less moisturizing it is!
Thanks for the chicken soup excerpt. Certainly puts everything into perspective, doesn’t it?
It’s all in moderation. If you do anything, there is a harmful “side effect” to it all. Name one thing… It’s gotta have a downside.
Ok, so I only want to point out a few thing .. I am currently looking for new skin care/make up line.
1) I’m 50, so using my old regime is probably not enough anymore.
2) For 25 years I have only used a very simple regime at night: Glaxal Base and Alyn and Hanbary soap. I don’t know if it’s genetics but I have the skin of a 40 or younger, year old… have used the Alyn and Hanbary soap for my body too.
3) Way too many companies scam people into believing that there skin will “improve” with continued use but if you read it carefully it says “improve the appearance”, that does not, in my books mean improve. That means that most likely, along with the other 50 ingredients, alcohol would be listed in the first 1-3 ingredient list and alcohol is a drying agent !! The rest of it, I have no clue what their negative effects have on us. But, the alcohol thing stands out in my mind.. Hey, just trying to maintain my skin and body. So, that being said, it goes for hand creams, body lotions and all sorts of stuff… ALCOHOL dries out the skin !!
4) I think it would be hard to define at times, why someone got skin cancer, or this disease or that cancer, but if you think about it carefully, if you use a product day after day or eat something day after day, it most definately will have the effect that most studies have shown it to have.
5) I don’t think that site was a scare tactic, just a place to inform us of what we are using on our bodies.
a big thank you to Boo Radley for posting that for us to see.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Health Canada is as bad as the US FDA in terms of taking any action towards reducing the amounts of carcinogenic chemicals in products.”
I’m really surprised to see you post this… Health Canada would not approve any products that contain DANGEROUS amounts of any toxic substance. However, the presence of a toxic substance per say, does not make the product dangerous. For such zealots like the ones running this website REDUCING the amounts would never be good enough. And a lot of these substances do things like prevent mold. I would take carcinogens in miniscule amounts in my shampoo, over mold anyday!!!
I have used this site before to look up ingredients in my makeup…some of it is scary, but they don’t say how much of it is harmful…It would be nice if they listed how much or how often you would have to use the product to get a harmful amount of the certain chemicals. I mean is ocassional use going to poison me? or would I have to leave the house with a full face of stage makeup every day for the next 10 years before it would be hazardous to my health?
Going though it most of my current makeup has fairly low ratings around a 4 which is good I guess. The makeup I used to use has very high ratings which may be why I broke out a lot with everything I used. But I have super sensitive skin anyway and have to be picky. I am not really concerned too much about the products I put on my face but more what I put in my body, check out your food labels…it makes you want to grow your own LOL
Outside of being a hermit and growing your own food and raising your own animals and making your own makeup, I don’t really think you can avoid the chemicals that are in virtually everything
hmm interesting to also note…I checked out my tea tree oil stuff that I have from the body shop and the ingredients lists between my tube and this site don’t match…I think they might be giving us the run around…
The site says these ingredients are in my tea tree oil scrub, but they aren’t even listed on the packaging: Methylparaben, Butylparaben, Ethylparaben, Methyldibromo Glutaronitrile, Isobutylparaben, Propylparaben, Quinoline Yellow,
These ingredients are listed on the packaging but not the site: Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Cocamide DEA, Silica, Sodium Benzoate, Citric Acid, Limonene
Interesting to also note that the ingredients that aren’t even listed on the packaging are the ingredients that they claim are most harmful…so is this site giving us the run around?! Cause I have lots of products that list paraben ingredients, my tea tree oil stuff isnt one of them yet they are trying to say there is a ton of paraben in it…and whats with the extra ingredients I have on the packaging that they failed to mention? Something smells funny here…
When I have more time I am going to grab a few other things that I have ingredients lists for and compare them to the site and see what I get cause this doesn’t add up at all…
Also the list of ingredients between the body shop site and this site conflict as well, the body shop site lists exactly what ingredients my tube says…hmm
ok idk why this didn’t work the first time…?
hmm interesting to also note…I checked out my tea tree oil stuff that I have from the body shop and the ingredients lists between my tube and this site don’t match…I think they might be giving us the run around…
The site says these ingredients are in my tea tree oil scrub, but they aren’t even listed on the packaging: Methylparaben, Butylparaben, Ethylparaben, Methyldibromo Glutaronitrile, Isobutylparaben, Propylparaben, Quinoline Yellow,
These ingredients are listed on the packaging but not the site: Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Cocamide DEA, Silica, Sodium Benzoate, Citric Acid, Limonene
Interesting to also note that the ingredients that aren’t even listed on the packaging are the ingredients that they claim are most harmful…so is this site giving us the run around?! Cause I have lots of products that list paraben ingredients, my tea tree oil stuff isnt one of them yet they are trying to say there is a ton of paraben in it…and whats with the extra ingredients I have on the packaging that they failed to mention? Something smells funny here…
When I have more time I am going to grab a few other things that I have ingredients lists for and compare them to the site and see what I get cause this doesn’t add up at all…
ah idk what is happening but my comments all say awaiting moderation…so I guess they have to be approved before they can be seen?!
Wow I am really surprised at some of the naive comments on this post, I thought in today’s more health conscious society people were more “with it”.
To the above poster who thinks citric acid is the same as the stuff in oranges, you might want to do a little google search. Seriously.
Thanks for posting this website. I’ve been familiar with it for a while and base my purchases on the ratings. Interesting isn’t it, that some of the most toxic products out there are also the ones with the most coupons floating around?? Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble products just to name a few….
To the commenter who thinks Health Canada is not capable of being as corrupt as the FDA, you might want to do a little research yourself. Both agencies have quite the “history”. I wouldn’t trust any government agency to my health personally.
Wonderful post Lillian, LMAO Rose….
LOL I know sally…I didn’t know what was going wrong with my posts…but ya interesting what I found still wondering why the label ingredients vs the site list of ingredients is off…has anyone else noticed this with other products cause now I am going to go crazy over this comparing everything else I can to see if the ingredients lists are the same…
freaky…
i think i will try to ignore what i have read today… seriously.
WOW!!!! What a Great web-site……looks like I’m changing my tooth paste to Burts Bees…..thanks for the insight…but I can’t give up my hair color….Oh well I’ll have my teeth and be bald……surpprised to find out about Johnson & Johnson’s baby Shampoo
i wouldn’t flip out too hard over what they say.
but it helps to show one thing, that the ingredients in drug store stuff, and overpriced department store stuff are the same.
Dang it, if i’m gonna give myself cancer, i’m sure as heck going not going to pay extra!
Well, I guess if shampoo is going to give you cancer, we’ll all have head cancer together. Lets put this all into perspective, can we. Sure, things like citric acid can be harmful in large amounts (bottle of vitamin C all at once), but do you suppose there is enough in that little glob of conditioner to cause harm. So many people try to scare us into thinking everything will kill us. People thought tomatoes would kill you too, and look how that turned out. I looked up Quaternium-15, one of the carcinogens in baby shampoo, and it turns out it isn’t a carcinogen, but a mild allergen, likely to cause a slight itch in 16% of us. Everything in moderation and we will all live long happy lives.
Also, fun fact: the body requires a small amount of arsnic in order to operate properly, but this website basically tells me I’m going to die if I even think about it!
For those inquiring about differing ingredient lists – be aware that the same exact product from the U.S. could have different ingredients in Canada. My guess is this website is American.
An excellent CANADIAN website that I found is :
http://www.lesstoxicguide.ca/index.asp?
This guide indicates what common ingredients can cause potential problems either as an allergen or as a toxic chemical and then most importantly tells you what brands of products in that category to buy instead. I have started buying Lavera makeup (found at the Bay at square one), and found many health and beauty products free of parabens etc. at Winners as well as many health food stores. I also noticed recently that my pharma plus in shoppers world in Brampton is carrying a huge selection of all natural products found in their own section in the aisle (plus you can get air miles from pharma). Just remember to educate yourself and read the ingredient lists of everything!
Very well worded article. Waiting patiently for more.
This website is an embarrassing waste of time. As a biochemist, I think that I can speak knowledgeably about this. I’ll tell a short story, in a class I took the professor showed us the MSDS of a chemical,
“Potential Acute Health Effects:
Hazardous in case of skin contact (irritant), of eye contact (irritant), inhalation (irritant). Slightly hazardous in case of skin
contact (permeator), of ingestion. Liquid or spray mist may produce tissue damage particularly on mucous membranes of
eyes, mouth and respiratory tract. Skin contact may produce burns. Inhalation of the spray mist may produce severe irritation
of respiratory tract, characterized by coughing, choking, or shortness of breath.”
sounds pretty scary right? Well then the chemical was revealed to be vinegar! So everything is relative here. Also, as long as cigarettes are legal to be sold, all bets are off.
In regards to this topic, it is hard to find reliable recommendations on the Web. Thanks for sharing your suggestions on natural health and similar topics. So, do you have any good suggestions on where I can locate more useful recommendations on the Internet? Keep up the great work!