Skin Care Products – What Are They Made Out Of?

Posted on 30. Oct, 2009 by Oksana Irwin in Good Home Living, Natural & Organic

It would be silly to ask if you would like to have a beautiful, flawless, and radiant skin. Of course you do! And we go to extra lengths to get it: we bake in tanning booths, add glazing, shimmering, and tanning lotions; we scrub our assets with sea salt, and self massage them with virgin olive oil; we use “mattifying” lotions when our skin gets to oily, and hydrating creams when its feel dry.

Interestingly enough, the cosmetic industry has us conviced that our skin types are anything but normal xxxxxx making us stacked up our bathroom counters with all sorts of “magically formulated solutions”. They categorized us for “oily” or “dry”, “combination oily”, “combination dry”, “dehydrated oily”, “mature”, ect. so it’s easier for them to manage us and our skin “problems”. We are willingly paying big $$$ for the wrinkle erasing and firming creams, lotions and moisturizers that “visibly improve” the signs of our aging, sagginess, and cellulite within 10 days or less – as it says on the box. But after years and years of continuous squeezing, applying, scrubbing and massaging dark circles, wrinkles, and cellulite marks…shucks -they are still there.

We are so used to the “abnormality” of our skin types and so obsessed with the cosmetic industry promising to make our skin look healthier, younger and more radiant that we take for granted what goes into these chemical cocktails that they offer us in the exchange for beautiful skin.

But what is really behind these beautifully packaged, professionally designed, enhanced with “advanced formula” creams, masks, and lotions? Are they really meant to make us look younger and prettier? We think they are…and how can we not trust the products when “dermatologists recommended” it?

I’d like to know who those dermatologists are that recommended us to use these synthetically modified chemical mixtures that don’t get along with our immune systems and are directly linked to the rising occurrences of cancer that attacks our generation at a much younger age?

For most of us, it would be shocking to find out what kind of toxic chemicals go into the cosmetic products that we apply onto our bodies daily without any reservation regarding our current and future health issues – all in a race for that flawless skin.

The synthetic fragrances molecules aren’t recognized by our immune system as safe. Because our DNA has evolved over millions of years, and synthetic fragrances have been in use only since the 1920s, every cell in our body is programmed to accept only truly natural compounds found in herbs and fruits. What do our bodies do when hostile substances attack it? It kicks back, and the outcome of this fight is not beautiful. Asthma, migraines, hyperactivity disorder in children and adults, rashes, depression, and seizures have been linked to synthetic chemical fragrances. New studies linking synthetic fragrances to cancer and diabetes come up daily.

A typical perfume contains a mixture of fragrance chemicals (often between 50 and 100) produced from coal tar and petroleum distillates or plants and herbs. Scented, natural, and synthetic ingredients can be equally harmful. But while organically derived aromatic alcohols can irritate skin, make you sneeze, or trigger existing eczema or asthma, benzene derivatives, aldehydes, phenols, phthalates, and many other fragrant toxins are capable of causing cancer, birth defects, and central nervous system disorder.

Studies constantly revile new irritating fragrance ingredients. Some of the oldest known toxic synthetic fragrances are nitromusks, such as musk ambrette. In clinical studies dating back to the 1980s, musk ambrette has caused eczema, jawline dermatitis, acute contact dermatitis, and chronic actinic dermatitis. The use of nitromusk in cosmetics has been banned, but synthetic musks are still found in musk-scented incense candles and may be lurking under the vague name “fragrance” in popular scented products.

Benzyl alcohol, an aromatic substance naturally found in essential oils including jasmine, hyacinth, and ylang-ylang, may cause various toxic effects, such as respiratory failure, very low blood pressure, convulsions, and paralysis. Benzyl alcohol was used up to 0.9% as a preservative in neonatal medications, but after sixteen newborns died of acute toxic poisoning in 1982, benzyl alcohol was banned for use as a preservative. In spite of this, as a fragrant ingredient, and possibly a preservative, it is currently used in popular moisturizers, facial cleaners, aftershaves, and baby wipes and lotions.

Most of the products that have been tested by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) contained the carcinogen in the vast majority of the most popular shampoos, body washes and many other personal care products. The most harmful active ingredients that were found in most personal care products were contaminated with 1,4-Dioxane, formaldehyde, nitrosamines, phthalates, and many others. Researchers have found that a single product containing 1,4-Dioxane could lead to 970 excess cancers in one million. When laboratory animals were tested with 1,4-Dioxane at the lowest parts per billion level – over the animal’s lifetime – they developed cancer. However, the levels of 1,4-Dioxane found in many personal care products are often thousands of times higher than those found to cause cancer in laboratory animals. 1,4-Dioxane is readily absorbed through the lungs, skin, and gastrointestinal tract. Bath products contaminated with 1,4-Dioxane are practically dangerous. Warm water is an effective penetration enhancer. When our pores are open, 1,4-Dioxane enters the bloodstream more easily. Animal tests have indisputably proven its tumor-promoting activity. 1,4-Dioxane known or suspected cause cancer or birth defects. 1,4-Dioxane considered potentially be equal or more dangerous than any pesticides.

The FDA has been measuring 1,4-Dioxane level since 1979, but because the agency has little authority over cosmetic industry, it has no power to make the manufacturers reduce level of 1,4-Dioxane. So, next time you go shopping, take some time and check product labels for ingredients that contain “eth” in their name, such as sodium laureth sulphate, (PEG) polyethylen glycol, oleth, myreth, ceteareth – basically, any ingredient that has en eth in its name most likely tested positive for 1,4-Dioxane.

Source: The Green Beauty Guide

For information on safety guide to cosmetics and personal care products visit: Cosmetic Data Base