Be your own ingredients detective – I am amazed at the number of people who trusts that the FDA is looking after them in terms of safety of the ingredients in personal care.
Allow me to tell you the truth: The FDA (Food & Drug Administration) doesn’t have your back. It is not that they don’t want to, but the FDA can’t take action against a chemical unless they have:
“sound scientific data to show that it is harmful under its intended use”, meaning they need evidence showing the harm of the chemical before they put any regulations on it.
So anything goes, from formaldehyde in hair relaxers (that ingredient applied to corpes) to coal tar in your eye shadow. Just to give you some perspective, the EU has banned 1,328 chemicals from being put into their cosmetics, while as of 2020, the US has banned only 30.
The EU begins taking measures to ban a chemicals as soon as there's evidence of its harm. Most of these chemicals are banned already in the EU because they are endocrine disruptors or carcinogens, but still lurk in the conventional personal care sold at your local CVS or supermarket.
Hear me out, is not that there are no safety guidelines for cosmetics, they do exist, it’s just that companies aren’t legally bound to adhere to them. Plus, Congress is partially at fault, because even though they’ve updated the FDA’s ability to regulate other type of products, they haven’t done so for cosmetics since 1938.
The solution may not be to buy only European cosmetics, but if you decide to do so, those picture above are good brands – Benecos, Weleda USA, Puro Bio
You can also do as follows:
1. Familiarize yourself with the main banned ingredients like formaldehyde, coal tar, talc, triclosan, Hydroquinone, red dye #3 & 40
2. Get in the habit of reading label ingredients and identifying the toxic ones
3. Advocate for clean products/ingredients in your personal care
4. Support #greenbeauty products by purchasing those instead of toxic laden conventional ones
5. Realize that your safety and health is your responsibility, so be an informed consumer.