Phthalates and the Cosmetic Industry: The High Cost of Beauty

Every day we get up and proceed with our daily regimen of making ourselves look and smell better: we lather up our bodies and our hair in the shower, we cleanse, tone and moisturize our face, we apply cosmetics, deodorant, and perfume or cologne. But at what cost to our health?

For most of us the word “sick” triggers thoughts of the flu, a cold, or some other viral or bacterial bug. We never really consider that synthetics toxins in our seemingly harmless personal care products could be making us sick or possibly even causing more harmful chronic degenerative illnesses.

Phthalates (pronounced THAY-lates) are a family of industrial chemicals found in many leading beauty products that we use every day, such as hair spray, deodorant, nail polish, lipstick and perfume/cologne. These infamous reproductive toxins, which are commonly used as a plastic softener and solvent in various consumer products, disrupt hormone function which may contribute to uterine problems in women and testicular problems in men, and infertility in both sexes. Since they do affect the hormones they may have a significant impact on breast cancer; incidents of breast cancer have risen dramatically from 1 in 20 in 1960 to 1 in 7 today. There are 3 members of the phthalates family: dibutyl phthalate (DBP), diethyl phthalate (DEP), and butylbenzyl phthalate (BBP). DBP being the most potent of the three and used in the greatest number of products on the market.