Schoolgirl Suffers Severe Allergic Reaction to L’Oreal Hair Dye

Today the Daily Mail reported a story about Carla Harris, a 15 year old schoolgirl who suffered a potent allergic reaction to L’Oreal Recital hair dye, causing her head to swell up to twice its normal size, leaving the teenager in agony for several days. You can see an image of the damage caused on the Daily Mail website.

Despite conducting a patch test prior to using the product, Carla still had a severe reaction after using the L’Oreal hair dye and was admitted into hospital and treated with antihistamines and steroids.

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Cosmetics Contaminated With Asbestos in Korea

South Korea media have reported that the Korean Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) has withdrawn several cosmetics and baby powder from the market under alleged contamination with asbestos.

Among the banned items are a face powder, a shading compact in two shades, a make up base and a face colour. The source of contamination would be a talcum powder imported from China by several distributors. Over 300 cosmetics companies, drug manufacturers, and baby powder companies are suspected to have purchased the tainted talc.

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Common Fragrance Ingredient is a Potent Allergen

A thesis presented at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden suggests that linalool, a common fragrance ingredient in personal care products and household products, instigates allergic skin reactions in considerably more people than was previously thought to be the case.

Linalool is a colourless fragrant terpene found in various plants e.g. lavender, rosewood. It is also synthetically manufactured to cut costs and used in household and hygiene products as a fragrance chemical. The concentrations used in cosmetics are fairly low but in aromatherapy products, natural products and in homemade soaps and fragrances, higher Read more

EU Nanoparticle Legislation Should be Exported to US

“Small may well be beautiful but to protect public safety and prevent a consumer backlash the US should adopt European style rules on nanomaterials,” says Guy Montague-Jones of Cosmeticsdesign-europe.com.

In March the EU amended the Cosmetics Directive to implement stricter requirements for nanomaterials, including mandatory listing of nanomaterial ingredients used for certain purposes on cosmetic packaging and the requirement for manufacturers to inform the EU Commission six months prior to product launch if they intend on using nanomaterials in a formulation, Read more

Nanoparticles in Cosmetics May Harm Environment

Using aquatic microbes as their “canary-in-a-cage,” scientists from Ohio today reported that nanoparticles now being added to cosmetics, sunscreens, and hundreds of other personal care products may be harmful to the environment.

Their report was part of symposia that included almost two dozen papers at the 237th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society where scientists grappled to understand the environmental and human health effects of nanotechnology. Hundreds of products utilizing these microscopic particles — 1/5,000th the diameter of a human hair — already are on the Read more

Shampoo Boosts Drug-resistant Bacteria

Scientists at Birmingham and Warwick universities have warned that fabric softeners, disinfectants, shampoos and other household products are spreading drug-resistant bacteria around Britain. Once these products are released into sewers and rivers they instigate the proliferation of drug-resistant microbes, increasing the likelihood that certain medicines will not be able to combat dangerous diseases.

The research suggests that the problem of drug resistance is not simply due to antibiotics being over-prescribed or poor hygiene standards in hospitals, although the emergence of deadly superbugs such as MRSA are not linked to the use of disinfectants.
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