Toxic Skincare Ingredients to Avoid
Toxic Skincare Ingredients to Avoid – Angie Cruise Blog
Toxic Skincare Ingredients to Avoid
Looking to clean up your skincare? Check out this list of 10 skincare ingredients to avoid in your makeup and beauty products.
after I switched to a whole foods diet and started using green cleaners in my home, I was still using crappy ingredients on my skin. For some reason, I just didn’t think the products I put on my skin were as important as the products I put in my body.
Well, I knew they were important, but I assumed that since I was buying well known, quality brands, that there wasn’t anything to worry about.
As it turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Up until just a few years ago, I had no idea that the cosmetics and skincare industry were virtually ungoverned.
In fact, the laws in place regarding cosmetics have remained largely unchanged since the late 1930’s. So much has changed since then, and yet, the laws remain the same. This has allowed for a number of ingredients to hit the shelves that can cause serious adverse effects to consumers.
We’re talking hormone disruptors, allergens, respiratory irritants, neurotoxins, and carcinogens. And they’re all just sitting there on the shelf, in pretty packages, begging you to use them.
It’s up to us to learn what skincare ingredients to avoid. After years of learning and doing better for my own family, I wanted to compile what I’ve learned to pass on to others just getting started. I hope this list helps you on your clean living journey!
Why do Skincare Ingredients Matter?
I think the reason I didn’t worry about my skin care products for so long was because unlike food that I ate or cleaners that I inhaled, I wasn’t putting these products
my body. So, what does it matter? It turns out, it matters a lot.
Your skin is your largest organ. Whatever you put
your body gets absorbed into your bloodstream. To make matters worse, the
Environmental Working Group
, the average woman uses over 12 products a day, averaging over 150 ingredients. Think about your simple morning routine. I don’t know about you, but before breakfast, I’ve already washed my face, used moisturizer with SPF, brushed my teeth, put on deodorant, chapstick, and lotion. If I take an early shower, I’m also using shampoo, conditioner, and soap! This doesn’t even include makeup, so that number can grow pretty quickly without us even realizing it.
With how little regulation there is on the industry, it’s important to understand the ingredients ourselves!
We have to be the gatekeepers of our homes. It’s up to us to make sure the products we’re bringing around our families are safe from harmful ingredients. We can’t trust that just because it’s on the store shelf, that it’s safe.
Self regulation is the only regulation. And these days, that means understanding ingredients, and knowing which skin care ingredients to avoid.
Skincare ingredients to avoid
For a long time, I was in denial over the fact that everything I was slathering on my skin was terrible for me. It’s not like I was picking the cheapest options available! I bought simple products that said things like “dermatologist recommended,” and “clear skin,” and “pure.” But, as with everything else, the more I learned, the more I realized I needed to change.
At first, I was really overwhelmed. There’s just so much information out there, and it’s hard to know where to start! How are we ever supposed to cut through all the noise,
eliminate the greenwashing companies
, and find products that are truly safe?
The good news is, all we have to do is know what to look for! If we’re going to take the power into our own hands, we have to go beyond trusting marketing, and truly understand what ingredients we need to avoid. Over time, this will allow us to build up our own arsenals of clean beauty brands we love and trust.
This list is nowhere near all-inclusive, but it’s a great place to start.
Phalates are a group of chemicals used to soften and increase the flexibility of plastic. This helps them stick to our skin, which makes it a really helpful ingredient in things like nail polish, body sprays, fragrance lotions, and other cosmetics.
Phalates are linked with:
endocrine disruption
developmental and reproductive toxicity
from Safe Cosmetics has a long list of references to peruse if you’d like to learn more.
While “fragrance” doesn’t sound nearly as scary as some of the other ingredients we’re discussing, it should scare you just as much. That’s because the term “fragrance” is considered a trade secret.
Federal law doesn’t require companies to disclose this information, and so the term “fragrance” is actually a blanket statement that covers over 300 different ingredients. It’s basically a “fragrance loophole” that allows companies to be pretty vague about what they’re using. Since they don’t have to disclose what’s in their fragrance blend, there’s really no telling what you’ll get.
Ingredients that fall under this category are
known to cause a lot of problems
endocrine disruption
respiratory problems
environmental pollution
While “fragrance” is in what seems like
, you can easily avoid it by looking for products that are either fragrance free* or use essential oils. My experience is that generally, if a company is using
ingredients, they won’t hide it under blanket statements.
*A word of caution: even “unscented” products can still contain fragrance, so be sure to look at the labels and find products that are “fragrance free.”
Parabens are a whole family of chemicals that extend the shelf life of products, and are one of the biggest offenders in most skincare products.
They can mimic estrogen in the body and can lead to hormone imbalances, fertility problems, and even cancer. If you want to learn more about this, you can check out
this article from the EWG
When I first started checking the ingredients on my products, I will say parabens were the biggest offender, because they’re in
. You can find parabens in products ranging from shampoo to lotion to makeup and everything in between. It goes by a lot of names, but if “paraben” is part of the word, avoid it.
Yep. Formaldehyde is pretty widely used in cosmetics, because it’s a great preservative. Of course, if you ever dissected a frog in high school biology, you already knew that. Unfortunately, formaldehyde is also a known human carcinogen.
It’s also been linked with:
developmental toxicity
and skin irritation.
Formaldehyde won’t be listed on the label, though. You see, while cosmetics companies want to make sure there’s some formaldehyde in their products to help preserve it, they aren’t just dumping it into the formula. Instead, they’re using formadehyde-releasing chemicals that go by a lot of different names. You can learn more through
, as well as get a list of ingredient names to be on the lookout for.
Tricolosan and Triclocarbon are antibacterial agents that used to be used in a lot of soaps and hand sanitizers. The ingredient was banned from that use in 2016, but is still widely used in other cosmetics. Some side effects include:
