Can fragrances in skin care products damage your health?

Everyone likes to smell nice. There’s nothing at all wrong with that, I do too. However sometimes smelling nice can be a little risky.

How so? Well read on and you’ll find out a little more.

Fragrances are all around us. Whether it’s your soaps, your perfumes, your skin care products or any one of a range of other personal and beauty products, nowadays everything seems to come with a fragrance.

It would be lovely to think that a fragrance was made from essence of rosehip or something natural like that. Unfortunately that’s a long way from the truth. You see fragrances are just chemicals that happen to smell good. They are usually produced by a chemist in a laboratory, and they are no different from any of the other chemicals found in so many of our personal products.

Fragrances are recognised as posing a risk, or a potential risk, to human health. As far back as 1986 the US National Academy of Sciences recognised the potential for fragrances to cause harm to your health and in particular recognised fragrances as a potential neurotoxin that could lead to brain damage.

Estimates by the European Union Scientific Committee on Cosmetic Products and Non-Food Products are that somewhere around 2 percent of people may well be allergic to chemical fragrances.

Chemical fragrances are one of the main allergens that can cause allergic reactions in some people including asthma.

Perhaps now you’re starting to get the picture. Fragrances are just chemicals. The vast majority of them have never been tested for safety when used on people. Like just about all the other chemicals which we apply to our skin when we use modern skin care products and other personal products such as cosmetics, once applied to the skin they are absorbed into your body and can be found in the bloodstream in a relatively short period of time.

Fragrances are totally unnecessary in skin care products, for obvious reasons now that you understand a little more about them. And for this reason the best natural skin care products do not have any fragrances in them at all. They are specifically left out for all the reasons stated above.

It’s not necessary to have fragrances in just about everything you use on your body. Whilst of course we don’t want to smell bad the levels of fragrances now present in so many products can pose a risk to your health.

Not only that but many of the chemicals used as fragrances are not even listed by their chemical name on the labels of the bottles of product because the make-up of these chemicals is a so-called “trade secret” and so the companies that make them are not required to disclose them. So no one really knows what they are.

One of the problems with fragrances in personal products such as skin care products is that many women apply them every single day to their whole face, neck and often body. So the fragrances are spread over a large area of skin, and sit there until absorbed into the body.

As we say there is nothing wrong with smelling nice. Whilst the fragrances in modern perfume are no different to those in skin care products a perfume is usually only applied with a small dab onto a tiny area of skin. This is much better than smearing chemical fragrances over much of your body.

And even better is to use a perfume on your clothes rather than your skin. That way they can’t do any harm at all.

So remember, whilst there’s nothing wrong with smelling good, how you do so can have its risks. Avoid all skin care products and other products which contain fragrances, and if you want to smell nice dab a little perfume onto your clothes.

And use high quality natural skin care products produced by a company that understands the risks inherent in fragrances along with a wide range of other chemical ingredients commonly found in mainstream skin care products today. Read the rest of this entry

Why should cancer in mice make you throw out your skin care products?

You may have heard about Sodium Lauryl Sulphate. There has been some publicity lately about the use of Sodium Lauryl Sulphate in personal products such as soaps and shampoos. But what is less well known is that Sodium Lauryl Sulphate, what is otherwise known as SLS, is also found in many moisturisers.

A study has been published which might make you a little wary of using some mainstream moisturisers.

This was a study on mice. Each of the mice had a moisturiser applied to the skin 5 times a day for 17 weeks. Each of the moisturisers contained Sodium Lauryl Sulphate.

To the surprise of the scientists it was discovered that the use of these moisturisers led to an increase in the rate of skin cancer in the mice and in particular that this use of these moisturisers “increased the total number of histologically characterized tumors by 69%”.

The moisturisers used on the mice were Dermovan, Dermabase, Eucerin, and Vanicream.

As the intention of the study was not to find out the effects of moisturisers containing Sodium Lauryl Sulphate the scientists were a little surprised by the result. And because of this result they decided to run another test. They then applied moisturisers did not contain Sodium Lauryl Sulphate to the mice and found that the use of these moisturisers caused no statistical increase in the rate of skin cancer in the mice. Scary stuff.

One of the best resources for finding out more information about the use of potentially dangerous chemicals in personal products is the Cosmetic Safety Database. There you are able to search individual chemical names as well as the names of products to see whether there are any health concerns linked to that particular search.

Here is the search at the Cosmetic Safety Database for Sodium Lauryl Sulphate. (Note the US spelling of Sulfate). You will see from the search that this particular chemical is linked to cancer, developmental reproductive toxicity, neurotoxicity, endocrine disruption, cellular level changes and much more.

As far back as 1983 it was known that there were potential health risks attached to the use of Sodium Lauryl Sulphate. In volume 2, number 7 a report in the Journal of the American College of Toxicology observed that a 10% concentration of SLS cause damage to the eyes of rabbits and that doses of from half a percent to 10 percent cause severe skin irritation.

And at a 15 percent concentration around 20 percent of the animals tested died.

Perhaps now you’re beginning to see some powerful reasons why you should be considering throwing away any big name products including skin care products that contain Sodium Lauryl Sulphate and opting for safer and more effective natural skin care products.

There is a wide range of natural ingredients used in natural skin care products which do not subject you potential health problems and many of which are extremely effective as natural moisturisers. Avocado oil, for example, has been used for centuries for its moisturising properties. Obviously avocados are safe, as they have been eaten for centuries as well.

Macadamia oil is also an excellent natural moisturiser and has been shown to help protect the skin cells from ageing. It is readily absorbed into your skin and does not leave an oily residue on the surface of the skin or block the pores.

Natural skin care products making use of safe and effective ingredients such as these, and much more, moisturise extremely effectively and protect your skin without subjecting you to any of the risks inherent in so many of the chemical ingredients found in modern skin care products. Read the rest of this entry