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Not So Sexy: Hidden Chemicals in Perfumes
Guest Blogger
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Campaign for Safe Cosmetics: A new analysis reveals that top-selling fragrance products—from Britney Spears’ Curious and Hannah Montana Secret Celebrity to Calvin Klein Eternity and Abercrombie & Fitch Fierce —contain a dozen or more secret chemicals not listed on labels, multiple chemicals that can trigger allergic reactions or disrupt hormones, and many substances that have not been assessed for safety by the beauty industry’s self-policing review panels.
The study of hidden toxic chemicals in perfumes comes on the heels of last week’s report by the President’s Cancer Panel, which sounded the alarm over the understudied and largely unregulated toxic chemicals used by millions of Americans in their daily lives. The Cancer Panel report recommends that pregnant women and couples planning to become pregnant avoid exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals due to cancer concerns. Hormone disruptors that may play a role in cancer were found in many of the fragrances analyzed for this study.
“This monumental study reveals the hidden hazards of fragrances,” said Anne C. Steinemann, Ph.D, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Professor of Public Affairs, University of Washington. “Secondhand scents are also a big concern. One person using a fragranced product can cause health problems for many others.”
For this study, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a national coalition of health and environmental groups, commissioned tests of 17 fragranced products at an independent laboratory. Campaign partner, the Environmental Working Group, assessed data from the tests and the product labels. The analysis reveals that the 17 products contained, on average:
• Fourteen secret chemicals not listed on labels due to a loophole in federal law that allows companies to claim fragrances as trade secrets. American Eagle SeventySeven contained 24 hidden chemicals, the highest number of any product in the study.
• Ten sensitizing chemicals associated with allergic reactions such as asthma, wheezing, headaches and contact dermatitis. Giorgio Armani Acqua Di Gio contained 19 different sensitizing chemicals, more than any other product in the study.
• Four hormone-disrupting chemicals linked to a range of health effects including sperm damage, thyroid disruption and cancer. Halle by Halle Berry, Quicksilver and Jennifer Lopez J. Lo Glow each contained seven different chemicals with the potential to disrupt the hormone system.
The majority of chemicals found in this report have never been assessed for safety by any publically accountable agency, or by the cosmetics industry’s self-policing review panels. Of the 91 ingredients identified in this study, only 19 have been reviewed by the Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR), and 27 have been assessed by International Fragrance Association (IFRA) and the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials (RIFM), which develop voluntary standards for chemicals used in fragrance.
“Something doesn’t smell right—clearly the system is broken,” said Lisa Archer, national coordinator of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics at the Breast Cancer Fund. “We urgently need updated laws that require full disclosure of cosmetic ingredients so consumers can make informed choices about what they are being exposed to.”
“Fragrance chemicals are inhaled or absorbed through the skin, and many of them end up inside people’s bodies, including pregnant women and newborn babies,” said Jane Houlihan, senior vice president for research at Environmental Working Group.
A recent EWG study found synthetic musk chemicals Galaxolide and Tonalide in the umbilical cord blood of newborn infants. The musk chemicals were found in nearly every fragrance analyzed for this study. Twelve of the 17 products also contained diethyl phthalate (DEP), a chemical linked to sperm damage and behavioral problems that has been found in the bodies of nearly all Americans tested.
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is a national coalition of nonprofit women’s, environmental, public health, faith and worker safety organizations. Our mission is to protect the health of consumers and workers by securing the corporate, regulatory and legislative reforms necessary to eliminate dangerous chemicals from cosmetics and personal care products.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and not necessarily those of Healthy Child Healthy World.
More comments:
Posted by Barbara Rubin on 05/13/2010 at 08:48 AM
Unfortunately, while activists fiddle, Rome continues to burn. This is quite ‘old’ news since experts have been writing about the hazardous and unregulated chemicals utilized in fragrances for decades.
Registered nurse, Betty Bridges produced a scholarly review of the less well known data on this topic in her most impressive site, Fragranced Product Information Network quite some time ago - 1997 to be exact.
http://www.fpinva.org/text/index.html
A new-comer to activist writing myself, I published an article on fragranced products in a trade journal called Indoor Environment Connections about two years ago. My source material was comprised of entirely mainstream informational sources in government and various medical associations which discuss the absence of labeling, regulation and safety testing for ingredients in these products.
http://www.ieconnections.com/archive/feb_08/feb_08.htm#article3
What many people fail to realize is that fragrance chemicals are also used in flavorings - yes, the food supply is also affected by the incorporation of proprietary (secret) ingredients in foods and in the packaging of those foods.
Since air fresheners are dispensed in equally unregulated delivery mechanisms such as misters and ‘plug-ins’, a steady supply of irritants and/or toxic ingredients fill our indoor air and create inflammatory states which are known author multiple diseases. It isn’t just cancer and asthma we need to address but the increased state of ill health of Americans in general (see “A Nation of Patients” at my website). Instead of addressing the source of inflammation - often external to our bodies - the FDA emphasizes altering our bodies to deal with such assaults. The drugs used to treat asthmatic constrictions in lung tissue merely open them wider to absorb more ‘triggers’ and irritants or allergens.
Sensitization is greatly downplayed by industry as a problem because the concept of ‘allergy’ is so easily dismissed as a condition treatable by antihistamines or injections. However, what is not stated is that the process of ‘sensitization’ to chemicals means individuals may become progressively less tolerant of the multitude of products all containing similar, undeclared ingredients and lose their health, productivity in the workforce and their freedom to move about society freely. However, toxicity responses remain the greatest hazard. One isn’t generally ‘allergic’ to poisons. Socrates didn’t die of an allergic reaction to hemlock!
Industry happily increases its income from the wider distribution of these products while we discuss them endlessly. The industry also makes fragrances a ubiquitous part of the landscape, incorporating them in an extremely wide range of products and air systems. The huge amount of chemicals which can be incorporated in these products makes the concept of regulation a joke given the number of years it takes to even propose the banning of any specific toxic constituent of a product - recall the issues plaguing the regulatory efforts to remove the additive diacetyl from flavored popcorn.
The main thrust of any consumer health campaign must lie with demanding full disclosure of the ingredients of all marketed products. Then the consumer can determine which industries should be rewarded with consumer dollars for making the best and safest products possible for our diverse purposes. Health care is in high demand because ‘we know not what we do’.