Are Your Beauty Products Toxic? Avoid These Seven Ingredients

The following ingredients are the most dangerous ones found in personal care products, according to the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization. Always check labels before purchasing products and avoid the ones with these nasty chemicals.

1. Placenta extracts—Found in hair care products. They give the body an unnecessary dose of hormones.
2. Mercury or Thimerosal—Believe it or not, mercury is still used in some cosmetics, including mascara and eye drops. Mercury can masquerade under the word, thimerosal, a mercury preservative.
3. Lead or Lead Acetate—The government demanded that lead be removed from gasoline and house paint but not hair dye, often black hair dye for men.
4. Hydroquinone skin lighteners—Avoid skin lighteners that contain hydroquinone, a bleaching chemical that can cause a skin disease called, ochronosis, which results in irreversible blue-black lesions that turn into black bumps all over the skin. Ingredients with the word, Tocopheryl, Tocopherol or Tocophersolan potentially contain hydroquinone.
5. Phthalates—These plasticizer chemicals are known as endocrine disruptors because they can affect the balance of hormones in the body, such as sperm damage in boys and infertility. Pregnant women should be particularly careful about avoiding these chemicals. Many popular brands of nail polish contain dibutyl phalate. The term “fragrance” is often used to hide the use of phalates, since companies are not required to disclose the ingredients that make up their fragrances.
6. Petroleum Byproducts—Did you know the same factories making gas for your car also make emollients for your face cream? Many contain cancer-causing impurities such as 1,4-dioxane, found in baby shampoos, or coal tar used in scalp treatment shampoos.
7. Nanoparticles—Many of these tiny ingredients are untested and can slide up the optic nerve to the brain or lodge inside red blood cells. The most troublesome of these is nano zinc oxide, a sunscreen that appears to pose the highest health risk when it’s in powders or sprays as opposed to lotions.