Most Skincare Products are Toxic
[ 9 min read ]
I used to sleep with my mum almost every night when I was a kid, especially during winter. It just felt nice and warm in bed when you had somebody to stick with. However, sometimes it bothered me to get in bed first when it was still cold inside, while my mum sat in front of the mirror doing her ordinary night routine with her beloved anti-aging cream.
I found the recent “Sephora kids” drama to be laughable, as some viral TikTok videos showed young teenagers busy buying anti-aging skincare for their daily routine that they believe will keep them forever young.
This trendy phenomenon brought out critical questions like “Why are people so determined to have a skincare routine that drains their time? Do they really work as they claim? Aren’t they just placebos or examples of wishful thinking?
The ancient quest for the fountain of youth
“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love.” — Sophia Loren (1934-present)
The idea of reversing one’s age dates back to the 16th century when Spanish voyagers were seeking a rumored elixir of youth in the Americas. But the first anti-aging recipe involving diet and lifestyle advice was given by German physician Christopher Hufeland in 1797.
This hunt for rejuvenation later turned into charlatanism, as a concoction mixed with mashed dog testicles that claimed to restore youth was commonly sold in Western countries in 1889.
The drug-like solution
In the mid-20th century, the industry was searching for a way to capitalize on the public aging anxiety. According to Laura Hurd, a sociologist professor from British Columbia University “We’re selling the idea that we are all against aging because we should be afraid of it — and better yet, battle it.”
The industry had discussed with scientists to define a new category for their anti-aging products, which accomplish more than color the skin but less than medicinal drugs so that they could evade the strict regulation.
A new term “cosmeceutical” was formed by dermatologist Dr. Albert Kligman in 1984. More than 90% of cosmetics sold in the market are considered cosmeceuticals, which claim to protect the skin, reduce wrinkles, or even reverse aging by changing our skin biologically.
Inflation vs. correlation
The Cosmeceuticals market is currently the fastest-growing category within the cosmetics industry. However, they are often poorly regulated in terms of price. Back in 2006, Consumer Reports magazine stated that the correlation between price and effectiveness is nothing to be found in anti-aging cosmetics.
According to Kligman’s interview in the journal Dermatologic Surgery in 2005, he mentioned that the marketing game between the cosmetic and drugs distinction has always been unclear, where it depends more on the labels on the packaging rather than the product itself.
When the entire anti-aging market is flooded with subjective biases towards fancy packaging and seductive claims, price is inflated and often determined by the intrinsic value of companies branding instead of the actual effectiveness as well as the commission that dermatologists would earn either from consulting or those so-called “Dermatologists Tested” sponsored products from associated companies.
Companies often try to justify their products price by either sharing the science behind the ingredients they used or demonstrate the clinical trails they had conducted, so they could make their products claims looks more convincing.
The flawed clinical trials
Many companies try to justify their products effectiveness to another level by showing their in-house consumer trails. It was often stated on their products description like “Consumer testing on 150 women after using the product for 4 weeks.”
Unfortunately, due to the fact that companies only conduct short-term clinical trials with small group of women with no followed up often make these trails hardly reliable. This could mainly comes down to 2 reasons:
- Maintain the testing period short would guarantee their production line to be cost effective, since the industry standard laboratory test would require at least 4–6 months to determine a products effectiveness, which is way longer than their preference.
- Secondly, conducting in-house short-term trails could guarantee the results lies in their favor. Due to the toxic nature of most products, companies are afraid trails that last longer are likely to develop potential health issues and side-effects.
Companies often tend to not make their products claims too “powerful” as it would draw the regulatory agencies’ attention to consider their products contain drug-like effects.
Although some companies would have the extra budget to run their exclusive tests, most of them still rather run product tests in the real market than conduct their own.
This often raised serious health concerns as consumers became guinea pigs for wild experiments, where the number of people who suffered from severe consequences from product usage was the only safety benchmark.
You skin feels “smoother” and “lifted”
You probably had seen something like “91% say skin feels smoother”, “85% say skin looks more lifted.” These are the typical statement that lots of anti-aging products would like to state.
Our perceptions sometimes could be off the target, even though they feels convincing. For example, there is a specific category of ingredients that defines the cosmeceuticals the way it is, it’s called “penetration enhancer”, more specifically Alpha-hydroxy-acids (AHAs), which often seen as citric acid.
This paticular type of acids makes consumers believe their skincare are “effective”, as they provide the “lifting” and “smoothing” effects. The way it works is that it increases our skin permeability so that other active ingredients can be absorbed into the deeper layer of our skin. However, an article written by Jenny Bailly from O, The Oprah Magazine in 2007 said “cosmeceutical products contains AHAs lift away dead cells on the surface of skin, revealing fresher smoother skin underneath.”
Skin “peeling”
A public consumer warning was issued back in 1992, stated that “skin peeling” effect from products contains AHAs which advertised to remove wrinkles would destroy upper layer of skin, cause severe burns, swelling and pain.
Later Cosmetics Ingredient Review Compendium suggests “the use of AHAs could increase damage caused by sunlight radiation”, as some tests had shown significant increase in sunburn cells in guinea pig skin treated with AHAs which increase the risk of certain skin cancer like malignant melanoma.
These concerns didn’t seems to diminish the public aging anxiety, as cosmeceuticals contains AHAs had became increasingly popular nowadays, where people simply couldn’t resist its promising effects.
To make things worse, companies are allowed to use AHAs up to 10% in their products, and many times they wouldn’t even disclose the amount they used, which result in AHAs used in more than 6% of all cosmeceuticals without showing on label at all, which makes it almost impossible to avoid these harmful ingredients.
Redundant vitamin A
One common active ingredients commonly seen in anti-wrinkle treatments are retinoids and their synthetic derivatives, often seens as retinol, retinyl palmitate or retinoic acid.
The use of retinol dates back to ancient Egypt where liver contains retinol was consumed for treating night blindness. It was later been discovered as “Vitamin A” during world war I.
They are often advertised by companies as “a form of Vitamin A” to serve as a disguise so that people would feel comfortable with its usage as it’s something that our body generally need.
Although companies were trying their best to educate consumers about the effectiveness of retinol towards wrinkle reduction, retinoids had only shown very limited evidence towards that.
Studies had shown only few certain types of retinoids would stimulate collagen production, where noticeable wrinkles improvement could be perceived for continuing treatment that last more than 6 months. However, this certainly doesn’t qualify the effectiveness towards the entire retinoids category.
Most of time retinol percepted as “working” is likely to be a placebo, where the boost of collagen certainly doesn’t equal to an visual anti-aging effect. However, that doesn’t mean there’s no health risks associated with it. A report from US National Toxicology program in 2012 sugguests that people are exposed to greater risk of skin cancer when used retinol or retinyl palmitate combined with sunlight.
Corrupted protein
Another recent industry be-loved “hype” active ingredient is called peptide, which are often promoted to strengthen skin and reduce looks of lines in almost any types of anti-aging skincare today.
So what is peptide exactly? Well, it’s basically a type of amino acids, which was discovered at early 19th century as the foundation that used to build protein, that’s it. However, most companies would like to elaborate this matter a lot further for “educational” purpose.
They often try to show their customers that how crucial is protein to our body, how our skin constructed by collagen, which also happens to be a type of protein. Although these information related to skin are often genuinely correct, the main purpose is to guide their customers to associate peptide towards something that is commonly regarded as non-toxic, like protein.
Many companies nowadays used certain type of peptide called the “Neurotransitter Inhibitor” peptides. Although a recent study from 2020 sugguests it’s possible for this certain type of peptides to reduce age-induced wrinkles by blocking neurotransmitters, this improvement is likely considered to be temporary, which simply explain why companies only willing to conduct short-term trials for testing products effectiveness.
The contamination
Peptides are also widely used in pharmaceutical industry, but that could hardly guarantee its safety. One major health concern associated with it is the contamination that happens during its manufacturing process.
Cosmeceutical peptides were often synthesis in specific solvents, the most commonly used one is N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF), which happens to be an extremely toxic solvent that also widely used in synthetic leather manufacturing.
The fact that for any scale of peptides synthesis, the purification cost is way larger than its production cost makes it nearly impossible to eliminate (DMF) residues entirely in commercial environment, which often result in final products contain this highly toxic solvent as a contaminant.
There are increased amount of cases shown that workers constantly exposed to (DMF) has been suffered from liver injury when DMF is often readily absorbed through skin.
Just like the case of contaminated lipstick. Products with contaminants are flawed in terms of safety where contaminant isn’t subjected to regulation, as it’s not considered as ingredient. This allow companies to play their shady games while evade the regulation entirely, even if sometimes these toxic impurities occur in considerable amount.
Distorting the meaning of “natural”
See the pattern here? Companies often try to play this marketing game with their consumers by associating their ingredient usage with things that are essential to our body, so that consumers are more likely to consider their products as “safe”.
This is common known as “information-gap” effect in terms of psychological marketing. Where companies provide the necessary information to fill the “gap” so that consumers are more likely to associate their products with knowledge that they were already familiar with, thus drive their engagement.
Citric acid is another example, which often advertised as “naturally occurred in citrus fruits.” But this hardly mean its harmless in every way. The fact that its a type of hydroxy acids, which boost our skin absorption of all ingredients makes it dangerous, as it would also absorb harmful chemicals like PEG compounds, which are known carcinogenic petroleum-based ingredients often seen in anti-wrinkle cream.
This could be alarming, as our skin is often less tolerant than our mouth, where toxic chemicals absorbed through our skin could be more harmful than we actually eat them, as they enter directly into our blood, bypassing the detoxifying enzymes in our liver that protect us from irritants or toxins in food.
When risks outweigh the benefits
“Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.” — Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
Most anti-aging skincare effectiveness nowadays still remain highly uncertain, however, one thing we can certainly be sure is that they could definitely pose serious risks to our health. It’s fair to say that it would be absolutely ludicrous for anyone to risk their life testing towards anti-aging products to see if they works as they claims.
With these amount of toxins that causing so much damage to our skin and health, I wouldn’t be surprise if someone found out these products actually make them age even faster.
Things about aging are complicated yet very simple. Industries certainly know how to sell their game, no matter how promising all these anti-aging products look, or how many so-called “reliable” trials these companies have shown. Their products certainly wouldn’t justify the benefits over their risks.
Would you rather believe companies' wishful claims or your self-instincts towards these uncertainties? Unfortunately, most of us would dare to trust with blindness, as we simply couldn’t resist to conquer our fear of ageism whenever we thought we had seized a chance.
