Right to know: exposing toxic fragrance chemicals in beauty, personal care and cleaning products
Breast Cancer Prevention Partners
Nudelman, Janet ; Engel, Connie L.
2018
115 p.
chemicals ; cosmetics ; cleaning ; toxic substances ; health impact assessment ; glossary
Chemicals
English
Bibliogr.
"Did you know that dozens, sometimes even hundreds, of chemicals can hide under one little word – “fragrance” – on the product labels of beauty and personal care products? And that the F word could lead to serious health consequences. What exactly is hiding in your products?
BCPP set out to investigate to what extent major companies that make beauty, personal care and cleaning products hide unlabeled toxic chemicals in their products. We took on this research project because the scientific literature and our previous product testing indicated that fragranced products contained chemicals linked to cancer, birth defects, hormone disruption and other adverse health effects.
Our biggest takeaway from Right to Know: Exposing Toxic Fragrance Chemicals in Beauty, Personal Care and Cleaning Products is that fragrance chemicals made up the vast majority of the chemicals linked to harmful chronic health effects in the beauty and personal care products we tested.
This finding reveals that elected officials can reduce our exposure to harmful chemicals and make products safer by requiring that companies fully reveal the identity – and safety – of secret fragrances."
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The ETUI is co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the ETUI.