Episode 3 – Skin
In this blog post, Ology Essentials’ Chief Formulator reviews episode 3 of HBO’s Not So Pretty. For an overall review, be sure to read HBO’s “Not So Pretty” Review by a Cosmetic Formulator.
Episode 3 of the HBO docuseries Not So Pretty discusses personal care products used on the skin. Skin is your largest organ, and I agree, you should be careful about what you apply to it. But again you can’t be hyper vigilant in one area of your life and not others–and you can’t blame one possible toxic exposure for something while ignoring all the other toxic exposures. I’ve seen the same lobbyist who wants you to be banned from using cosmetics ingredients that they are lobbying against stepping outside and smoking a cigarette or eating junk food. There is a disconnect there. The entire premise of episode 3 appears to be that cosmetics are consumers’ only exposures to toxic chemicals and that cosmetics are the cause of all the negative outcomes of the people in the episode. They completely ignore toxins and ingredients consumers are exposed to in food, pharmaceuticals both ingested and injected, household cleaners, laundry products, polluted air, soil, water, and so much more.
I am all about natural cosmetics. It is my niche and speciality, but it doesn’t mean that everything else is evil. I do not have chemophobia–my body, my nose, my mast cells simply reject chemical products–but that is just me. It is dangerous to be so strongly on one side of an industry and accusingly point at the other side of the industry. Natural products are now available abundantly in the marketplace and consumers can make the choices that are best for them.
The elevator analogy in this episode was an immediate alarm bell that we were heading into very unscientific opinions. In episode 3 Stacy Malkan says, “If you are in the elevator and you can smell the person who was there before you, that’s phthalates.” So if you can smell someone’s fart when they leave the elevator did they eat phthalates for lunch? It doesn’t take a scientist to know that statement is outright fearmongering. Stephen Brubaker gave an excellent plain English explanation about food aromas lingering on Quora that is enlightening overall about lingering aromas, “Every single chemical has its own transport characteristics. Each diffuses through the air at a different speed and sticks to specific surfaces to a slightly different degree. Being bound to water or oil aerosols can materially affect how long it lingers.” It is true that some perfume companies use phthalates in their formulations, but not all lingering aromas are phthalates. For instance many can attest to the fact that Patchouli (Pogostemon Cablin) essential oil lingers without the aid of phthalates.
But let’s talk about phthalates. First, the FDA definition of a phthalate, “Phthalates are a group of chemicals used in hundreds of products, such as toys, vinyl flooring and wall covering, detergents, lubricating oils, food packaging, pharmaceuticals, blood bags and tubing, and personal care products, such as nail polish, hair sprays, aftershave lotions, soaps, shampoos, perfumes and other fragrance preparations.” In the personal care product industry the phthalates that have been in use are dibutylphthalate (DBP) which is a plasticizer in products such as nail polishes, dimethylphthalate (DMP) that is used in hair sprays, and the phthalate that is used as a solvent and fixative in fragrances, mentioned in the docuseries, diethylphthalate (DEP). Both DBP and DMP are required to be listed on the ingredient list, however DEP falls under the fragrance exception and would not be listed on the ingredient deck.
I totally agree that the fragrance exception is wrong. I am a huge proponent of full disclosure and transparency. At Ology Essentials I insist that we not only disclose all the essential oils in any proprietary blend and also that we also use the INCI names of each one so that consumers can know exactly what they are putting on their bodies. But I also recognize that the typical fragrance oil can contain an incredibly large number of essential oils, synthetic aroma chemicals, aromatic resins, and possibly DEP if the product is not labeled phthalate free. The ingredient list of many fragrances would be outrageously long and it could be unreasonable to expect all the ingredients in a product PLUS all the ingredients in the fragrance oil to fit on an ingredient label. It is already hard enough to read the small print of an ingredient label. A compromise of some sort would need to be met. One solution could be that the full listing of the fragrance component must be listed on a company’s website. Or another solution could be to identify a specific list of ingredients that must always be disclosed on the ingredient deck if they are used.
