It is always interesting to read the latest research and articles about sensitive skin and about the beauty industry and beauty products in general and the marvellous Google alert system enables us to do this without having to spend ages trawling the internet.
A couple of things caught our eye this week. One was yet another article about how toxic your cosmetics are (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1132810/Is-make-killing-There-deadly-poisons-lurking-handbag.html) which again seemed to be prompted by the publication of a new book on the subject and which yet again talked about, amongst other things, parabens in underarm deodorants (which was based on discredited research carried out six years ago).
Just who is buying all these books? There's a new one every week. The authors - in this case someone called Dawn Mellowship - are just churning out the same old stuff and it really is time the cosmetics' industry stood up for itself. Millions is spent on research to make cosmetics safe and the fact that something is a 'chemical' doesn't make it dangerous. I know we're always using the quote (see below) from the Sense about Science report Making Sense of Chemical Stories, but it does underline that everything is chemcial in essence:
“If someone came into your house and offered you a cocktail of butanol, iso amyl alcohol, hexanol, phenyl ethanol, tannin, benzyl alcohol, caffeine, geraniol, quercetin, 3-galloyl epicatchin, 3-galloyl epigallocatchin and inorganic salts, would you take it? It sounds pretty ghastly. If instead you were offered a cup of tea, you would probably take it. Tea is a complex mixture containing the above chemicals in concentrations that vary depending on where it is grown.” Derek Lohmann, research chemist (Making Sense of Chemical Stories, Sense about Science).
The alternative that these books always offer is that people should use natural products (sometimes the authors have launched their own range. Hmmm!). The fact is, these are not always the best option. Sensitive skins should be careful in particular. And, many ranges are not as natural as they claim and are not rigorously tested. Quite apart from this, many are not even effective.
We were quite pleased that many of the 41 comments posted on the Daily Mail website were dismissive of the subject of the piece.
Anyway, we have ranted before about these articles so I take a deep breath and move on. The second interesting article was about some new research from the University of Gothenburg which shows that even natural aromatic oils may cause allergic reactions. This is not surprising to us because so many ranges loaded with essential oils claim to be fine for sensitive skins these days but we get calls or emails from many people who find the opposite to be true and are confused because the label on the bottle said 'for sensitive skin'.
On http://www.bio-medicine.org/ they report that the University research shows that hypersensitivity to perfumes is the most common contact allergy in adults. The University of Gothenburg has demonstrated, the article says, that even natural aromatic oils, which many deem harmless compared to synthetic perfumes, may cause allergic reactions.
Below I have copied extracts from the article and bolded the bits we found useful. The full thing can be read here http://www.bio-medicine.org/biology-news-1/Even-natural-perfumes-may-cause-allergies-6922-1/.
"Roughly one in five adults in northern Europe is believed to suffer from contact allergy to one or more chemicals. The most common is nickel allergy, but many people also suffer from contact allergy to perfumes even perfume substances that at first glance appear to be harmless can cause allergic reactions. New eczema-provoking allergens are formed by reaction with acid in the ambient air (known as autoxidation) or with skin enzymes.
"Modern society commonly regards anything that comes from nature as being healthier and less dangerous. Where it concerns natural aromas, known as essential oils, many manufacturers believe that natural antioxidants in these oils offer protection against autoxidation thus making them safer and longer lasting than artificial perfumes. Research at the University of Gothenburg shows this is not the case.
"Lina Hagvall, a researcher at the University of Gothenburg's Department of Chemistry, has examined natural lavender oil in her thesis. Her results show that essential oils do not prevent the formation of allergenic substances through reactions with acid; something which had not previously been possible to confirm. Hagvall's thesis also examines geraniol, a common constituent of perfumes such as rose oil. The study shows geraniol by itself to be only slightly allergenic. However through autoxidation and reaction with skin enzymes, the substance is activated and becomes the closely related allergen geranial. This is the first time these activation pathways have been demonstrated for the substance."
Well, that's enough food for thought for one morning. There's shampoo to be made here and orders to process.
The Team at Queen
1 comment:
Very interesting post! Essential oils can be very sensitizing and many small companies developing organic products don't believe it. I sometimes wonder if natural/organic is that much better or if we are just creating new problems. Andrea www.THENHUCH.com
Post a Comment