Friends and family sometimes recommend or give us products.
We are in the business of making cosmetics, so we want to know what
they use and like.
One such product was a body oil with an organic-sounding name.
It claimed to contain a “breakthrough” oil ingredient.
But the supposedly “breakthrough” ingredient is nothing more
than a tradename applied to mineral oil with a few drops of other oils.
Mineral oil is an inexpensive petroleum-based product that tends to
block the skin’s pores.
Worse yet, mineral oil was not listed as an ingredient on the
bottle. In fact, there was no list of ingredients on the container.
Yet this product is sold by major retailers, including a leading
cosmetics chain store. The price is nearly $3.50 per ounce; pure mineral
oil sells for only about 20 cents per ounce. There is only one reason
people would buy this product: They have been misled.
Another product given to us was a balm. There was only one
active ingredient listed on the container: phenol.
Phenol is another petroleum product. It is an acid normally used
in plastics manufacturing.
Phenol is banned for use in cosmetics in Europe and Canada
because of safety concerns! But it’s legal to use it in the US because our
regulations are not as strict. Would you choose a product with an
ingredient banned in Europe when there are safe alternatives?
These are not isolated cases. Cosmetics shelves in stores are full
of products that list “fragrance” as an ingredient.