I am an avid consumer of cosmetic products so I search for a lot of information and I read a lot of articles related to cosmetics in order to keep up with the latest news and releases. Lately, I noticed the emergence of a megatrend: companies are releasing what they called “clean” cosmetics. It’s a controversial topic that I’ve been wanting to write about for months but to be honest, I wasn’t sure how to not get too involved because it’s a touchy subject which creates a lot of misunderstanding. So I started researching to find out more about this topic and as I dug deeper I realised that there’s no exact legal definition and there are huge differences in the way people and brands consider cosmetics “clean”.
As I found out later, there are thousands of chemicals used in the cosmetics industry that are absorbed into your body. In fact, it is claimed that women who use makeup on a daily basis are absorbing over two kilos of chemicals a year into their bodies. These toxic chemicals can be causing all sorts of issues from our reproductive systems, to an increase of allergies. A big unknown is how chemicals interact with each other in the body after they are absorbed through the skin. Many personal care products contain ingredients known as “endocrine disruptors.” These toxic chemicals can interfere with normal hormone functions of the endocrine system that are crucial to a healthy pregnancy and breastfeeding. But they may also cause reproductive problems before you get pregnant. Much of the research points out that more needs to be done to determine the true risk of exposure to such chemicals in our cosmetic products. But considering how much regulation is lacking within the beauty industry, you may want to play it safe and avoid these chemicals when it comes time to think about starting a family. While some chemicals are too large to enter our bloodstream, many are small enough to penetrate. In 2005, the Environmental Working Group published a combination of two studies that found toxic chemicals in the umbilical cord blood of newborn babies born in the U.S. in 2004 and more than half of the 400 chemicals screened were detected within the umbilical cord blood of these newborns. Of these chemicals, 208 of them are known to damage growth development or cause birth defects.
So it is becoming increasingly important to pick out what beauty brands’ stand is on beauty. And as I browsed through the myriad of beauty brands, I realised that the specialized brands would shortlist the "bad/toxic" ingredients and avoid using them within their formulation. Brands like KOSAS and NICH are focused on producing cosmetics that are safe for the skin and sourcing for alternatives to replace chemicals known to be harmful to the human body.
So while clean cosmetics are fast becoming a dominant trend, it has also been backed by the scientific community that it is a cause for the good. The “clean” movement has helped make consumers more mindful of what they put on their bodies, made brands more transparent and accountable, and, in some ways, even made talking about things like sustainability, self-care, and climate change more mainstream and comfortable—all very good things. So my best advice for navigating the whole clean beauty space after this? Make an effort to educate yourself with the knowledge of toxic and clean ingredients and not be distracted by cynics who dismiss it as solely a marketing gimmick. That, perhaps, is a discussion for another day.