Choosing safer personal care products can lower exposures to risky chemicals

Latest findings from the Taking Stock Study

Women who selectively purchase personal care products based on their ingredients were successfully able to lower their exposures to several chemicals associated with health risks, according to a new study published in the journal Environmental Justice.

The findings come from the Taking Stock Study, a community-academic partnership between the University of California, Santa Barbara; Black Women for Wellness; Silent Spring Institute; LA Grit Media; and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The project explores the impacts of beauty products on Black and Latina women in California—a group disproportionately exposed to potentially harmful chemicals in cosmetics, hair products, menstrual and intimate care products, and leave-on and rinse-off products like body lotions and soaps.

The study team asked 35 Black women and 35 Latinas in South Los Angeles about their personal care product shopping behaviors. They also collected urine samples and analyzed them for 28 endocrine disrupting chemicals commonly found in personal care products, such as phthalates, parabens, oxybenzone, and BPA.

Key findings:

• Black women who chose products without fragrance had less than half the levels of diethyl phthalate in their urine compared to women who did not avoid fragranced products.
• Latinas who chose products without the sunscreen chemical oxybenzone had significantly lower levels of the chemical in their urine.
• All women who avoided products with parabens had urinary concentrations of methyl and propyl paraben that were two times lower.

The study supports previous research by Silent Spring that found reading labels can go a long way toward reducing a person’s chemical body burden. In that study, Silent Spring research scientist Dr. Robin Dodson and her team collected urine samples from 726 participants across the United States who signed up to join a crowdsourced biomonitoring project.

The researchers found that consumers who avoided products containing specific chemicals had significantly lower levels of many endocrine disrupting chemicals—but not all.

“Although there’s a lot that people can do to avoid harmful ingredients, they can’t shop their way out of this problem,” says Dodson. “Ultimately, encouraging companies to invest in safer alternatives and strengthening regulations to keep harmful chemicals out of products in the first place would be the most effective and equitable way to protect public health.”

Read Columbia University’s announcement to learn more about the study.