Toxic Beauty Extracts: Cosmetics and Cancer

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in America, after heart disease and around one in four deaths in the EU are as a result of cancer. Cancer can be characterised as a cluster of diseases where normal cells multiply beyond normal growth mechanisms, generating millions of similar self-multiplying cells that become cancerous when they spread beyond their normal area (metastasis). There are over 100 types of cancer.

It is thought that every cancer develops from one altered cell, which fails to respond to normal attempts to control its growth, inheriting or aquiring DNA Read more

L’Oreal Reprimanded for Unsubstantiated Marketing Claims

We all know that cosmetics companies embellish the truth when it comes to marketing their products. In fact when researching my book, Toxic Beauty, I found that most of their claims are unfounded. Simply put, no cosmetic product banishes wrinkles, you’ll be lucky to even get a slight improvement.

Advertisements are accompanied by ludicrous claims that often make me simultaneously chuckle and cry, at the outlandishness and the deception.

With that in mind, I can’t help but feel glad that L’Oreal is being taken to the Market Court in Sweden for making claims about Lancome High Resolution and Vichy LiftActiv Pro products that the Consumer Ombudsman (KO) says Read more

Greenwashers may be subject to increasing litigation

Greenwashers beware. According to an article published in a legal journal greenwashing brands may increasingly face litigation. Lawyers Victoria Davis Lockard and Josh Becker from US firm Alston & Bird warn that eco-fraud is ‘the latest flavor of consumer product class litigation’ – lawsuits where multiple plaintiffs take action against a product that has failed to deliver on its advertising claims.

Lockard and Becker claim that not only may the courts be more sympathetic to an environmental cause than exaggerated efficacy claims, but the plaintiffs in eco-fraud cases will have powerful allies in the form of environmental Read more

Colipa Scientist Calls for ‘nanomaterial’ definition

Dr Gerald Renner from Colipa has called for a common definition of the term ‘nanomaterial’ at a conference in Brussels on regulation of nanotechnology.

Leading figures from industry, regulators and consumer groups gathered at the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) nanotechnology conference to discuss safety concerns, consumer attitudes and regulation.

Need for a definition

Talking at the conference about what regulatory moves remain to be taken, Colipa’s Director of Science and Research Dr Gerald Renner said a
Read more

Will USDA Organic Standards Finally Include Cosmetics?

The boom in unofficial organic standards for cosmetic products is a huge source of confusion for consumers who don’t know which standards are the most stringent. I sometimes wonder if some members of the ‘organic’ industry enjoy the bewilderment because it makes it easier for them to market synthetic concoctions as ‘organic’ and ‘natural,’ without redress. 

It is often suggested in the media and by some cosmetic companies that there are no official certification standards that can be applied to cosmetic products, but this simply isn’t true. The United States Department for Agriculture (USDA) National Organic Program (NOP) has standards in
Read more

Natrue and Natural Products Association Join Forces

European certifier of ‘natural’ cosmetics Natrue has signed a mutual recognition agreement with the Natural Products Association (NPA) in the US, meaning that products complying with the standards of either of these bodies will not have to undergo the full certification process again when they wish to market their products across the Atlantic. Natrue also signed an equivalency agreement with Quality Assurance International (QAI) certifiers earlier in the year.

I am not Natrue’s biggest fan. Their standards are abysmally weak
Read more

Organic Cosmetic Confusion

The boom in organic certification schemes is counterproductive, confusing for consumers and draws attention away from producers of genuinely certified organic products, who are lost amongst larger competitors that dupe consumers with weak certification labels and false claims. “Certification wars” are well underway and on Cosmeticsdesign-europe.com  you can see a video of Amarjit Sahota, director of organic market research organisation, Organic Monitor, discuss the issues involved. Sahota has called for the possibility of a global standard becoming a reality, but I am far from convinced unless the standards are stringent, official and enforced.

Read more

Scientist Links Chemical Cocktails to Male Infertility and Birth Defects

Professor Richard Sharpe of the Medical Research Council highlighted in a report commissioned by CHEM Trust published last week that chemicals in consumer products may contribute to human male reproductive disorders that manifest at birth (cryptorchidism – undescended testes, hypospadias –where the opening of the urethra is abnormally positioned somewhere along the underside of the penis, between the base and just below the tip), or in young adulthood (impaired semen quality or testicular germ cell tumours). Such disorders are collectively referred to as Testicular Dysgenesis Syndrome, a phrase coined by Professor Niels E Skakkebaek MD.

Read more

Report Reveals Greenwashing is Rife

A report published by North American environmental marketing firm TerraChoice Environmental Marketing, entitled The Seven Sins of Greenwashing (a follow up to the 2007 report, The Six Sins of Greenwashing) has revealed that the number of products making environmental claims has increased by an average of 79 percent in stores visited in 2007 and 2008, and 98 percent of products commit at least one of the Sins of Greenwashing highlighted in the report

TerraChoice researchers investigated retailers in the US, UK, Australia and Canada in November 2008 and January 2009, with instructions to record all Read more

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.

Read more

Next Page »