Montrose Daily Press, Robert Allen
Published February 15, 2007
MONTROSE — Lovers around the world will shower their partners with gifts of aromatic perfumes, sensuous lotions and brilliant nail polishes in honor of St. Valentine today.
Many will do so absent the knowledge of the potential hazards hiding under the ingredient listed, “fragrance” on the label.
“Most people think that cosmetics and personal care products have to be tested before they go on the market, but that’s not actually true,” Renee Sharp, Environmental Working Group senior analyst, said.
“Even the FDA has said that cosmetics companies can basically put almost anything in their ingredients without the consumers knowing.”
The Food and Drug Administration allows the fragrance industry to regulate itself through a trade association called the International Fragrance Association. This entity conducts the safety assessments to determine which ingredients are suitable for fragrances.
“Fragrance” is a catchall phrase referring to any combination of several thousand different chemicals that could be used to produce the aroma, and you don’t know which ones they’ve included, Sharp said.
Phthalates are an ingredient in question with regard to health hazards. These are a group of chemicals that have been in widespread use for nearly a century. They are used to make the vinyl plastic flexible in everything from automobiles to kitchen floors to children’s toys.
They are also found in lubricants, hair goo, deodorants and myriad other household products. They prevent aromatic sprays from evaporating and maintain the flexibility of nail polish.
“They can mimic human hormones, are shown to cause birth defects in animals,” Sharp said. “Look at the level actually found in bodies of us women of childbearing age, we actually have levels that are higher than the level that the government says is safe to protect against birth defects.”
Although tests have revealed “elevated levels of phthalates excreted by women of child-bearing age,” none of the data has made a connection between the use of phthalates in cosmetic products and health risks, according to the FDA Web site at
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov.
However, both the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control are conducting research to determine what effect, if any, phthalates have on human health.
“I think that there’s pretty compelling evidence that phthalates have demonstrated toxicity in animal studies, but in humans (results are) inconclusive,” Antonia Calasat, lead CDC research chemist in Atlanta, said.
Phthalates are known to have some carcinogenic attributes in animals, but this does not seem to be a risk for humans. Recent research focuses more on the effects on the development of reproductive systems, primarily in young males, with both animals and humans, Calasat said.
“We don’t know enough to say one way or the other. The evidence we have right now is inconclusive,” she said. “I know various groups of researchers and epidemiologists working both in the (United States) and abroad.”
Phthalates research falls under the “emerging chemicals” category, she said. These compounds are not the traditional chemicals people have researched regarding health effects at the environmental level, but are becoming more widely investigated.
Product tests have revealed phthalates’ presence in about three fourths of 72 name-brand cosmetic products tested, according to
http://www.nottoopretty.org.
These include products of Calvin Klein, Nivea, Herbal Essences and Sally Hansen.
Companies such as Aveda and The Body Shop make phthalate-free products, according to the Web site.
Other countries have taken action to phase out phthalates, such as through Canadian and European union legislature to ban the use of certain phthalates in children’s toys.
