Hi there everyone!

There are many, many harmful ingredients in the products we use for our body and hair and most of them we can’t even pronounce. A lot of the synthetic compounds found in cosmetics and personal-care products are being linked to carcinogenic contamination and hormonal interference. This in turn affects our reproductive and developmental health. Today, I wanted to focus mainly on the harmful chemicals found in body and hair products first. Typically we use these products everyday compared to makeup or other facial products.

1) Triclosan and Triclocarban: These are antimicrobial compounds that are typically found in soaps of all kinds. Triclosan has been linked to disrupt the thyroid function and reproductive hormones and the overuse of this chemical may result in the development of bacterial resistance.

2) Oxybenzone: This is a sunscreen agent and absorbs ultraviolet-light. It causes irritation and allergies and many studies have indicated that its metabolites may disrupt hormonal systems.

3) Formaldehyde releasers: This ingredient is made up of a group of cosmetic preservatives. It basically is a carcinogen when mixed with water.

4) Microbeads: These are tiny pieces of plastic that are mainly used as exfoliants and often they are so small that they get filtered through the wastewater and end up in lakes and rivers. Hence, the fish end up eating them. So they absorb a lot of these harmful chemicals as well.

5) Parabens ( propyl, isopropyl, butyl, and isobutyl): Parabens are basically preservatives that are used in cosmetics and fragrances. The FDA has already said that they have been shown to mimic estrogen. I had once been to an Endocrinologist and she had said the exact same thing. Many times we use hair product and don’t wash our hands. The chemicals are constantly being absorbed by our bodies. But, many companies nowadays are reformulating their products to not include parabens. So this ingredient has become easy to avoid overall.

6) Unspecified fragrance: A lot of times, companies do not individually its the ingredients that add scent to their products. These unspecified fragrances contain phthalates. This is known to be a family of plasticizers and has been shown to affect our reproductive health and cause reproductive and developmental disorders.

7) Polyethylene glycol (PEG) and Ceteareth compounds: These are conditioning and cleaning agents are considered as a probable human carcinogen.

8) Vitamin A compounds for daytime products (anything with retinal, retinol, etc.): This is a skin conditioning agent used in sunscreens, lotions, face moisturizers, etc. They break down sunlight and produce toxic free radicals which can damage the DNA in our body and which in turn can develop into skin lesions and various tumors.

I really do hope this post helps! We absorb a lot of chemicals into our bodies without knowing the side effects of these ingredients. It might seem as though we do not use a huge amount of these products with chemicals, but if we use them everyday just imagine how much our body and skin has been absorbing.

Take a moment to think about this!

-Krutika