What You Need to Know About the Latest Bill to Ban Toxic Beauty Ingredients
At the end of March, a new bill was announced that would ban toxic ingredients found in beauty and cosmetics products in California. The proposed list of ingredients includes asbestos, mercury, and formaldehyde, which made me think, “excuse me, WHAT?” Who has been letting asbestos and formaldehyde in my beauty products and why are these ingredients just now being banned?
via Fast Company
Assembly member Al Muratsuchi, who co-sponsored the bill, stated that the bill “will protect consumers by banning the sale in California of cosmetics containing known carcinogens, reproductive toxins, and endocrine disruptors that are harmful to human health.” You guys, I am reeling. Recently, I’ve been trying to pay more attention to the ingredients in my products, but it’s so hard for an average consumer like me to learn about all the harmful ingredients so I know what to look for when reading labels. Isn’t it the job of the FDA to regulate what goes into my products so I can feel safe purchasing something off the shelf without performing a full-on background check? I guess better late than never?
Well, it turns out the bill is now stalled with no plans of it coming back. According to Consumer Affairs, “the environmentalists were outmatched by the Personal Care Products Council, the lobbying group that represents the $250 billion worldwide cosmetics industry. The industry group claimed that the bill ‘grossly oversimplifies the complex science behind the ingredients in cosmetics and personal-care products.”
Can your eyes get stuck in the back of your head from rolling them too hard? What does that claim even mean? Formaldehyde is still formaldehyde and asbestos is still asbestos. Currently, the cosmetics industry is in charge of regulating themselves for the dangerous toxins that were included in this bill. That’s like putting a child in charge of whether or not they get grounded for doing something wrong. If it makes their jobs easier and helps cut costs to include these harmful chemicals, they’re not going to be very strict with themselves.
Beautycounter enlists its sales team to fight for better regulation in the beauty industry. It’s part of a wave of activist brands taking on Washington. via Fast Company
I mean, come on. Formaldehyde is used to embalm dead bodies. And we’re putting that on our face? I guess it does have some really great preserving properties, but it’s also been shown to cause cancer. Is that worth having your skin maybe look a little better? I’m going to go ahead and say no. And asbestos is widely known to be dangerous. It’s a known carcinogen and can cause serious respiratory diseases. It has no place in cosmetics. We were all warned about mercury poisoning when learning about thermometers in school, but did you know it’s commonly found in mascara? And those are just three of the twenty harmful toxic chemicals that were put on the bill.
via The Teelie Blog
The good thing is that more and more natural beauty brands are being founded all the time and we, as consumers, are becoming smarter about what we purchase. So even though this bill has been tabled, we can still avoid these chemicals and make good decisions with our spending power. While it’s going to take some extra work and research, we should all be further examining what is in the products we use, especially when they come in direct contact with our bodies.
Cover image via Fast Company