Saturday 19 April 2014

Parabens in makeup and skin care

I'm sorry but I'm really frustrated and want to rant.
I love buying makeup and skin care products. I spend literally hundreds of pounds on it yearly, but trying to find paraben free makeup, skin care, body lotion and anti-ageing products is no walk in the park - it's more like an uphill ice skating competition. You may ask why I want to avoid parabens... So now I'm going to tell you...

Parabens are used as anti fungals in lotions, eyeshadows, pressed powders, toothpaste, mouthwash, foundations, moisturisers, anti-ageing creams, lipsticks, concealers, shampoo, spf sun creams/lotions, hand creams, perfumes - the list goes on. Their basic job is to help prevent *insert paraben-containing product here* from 'going off' and keeping the product fresher for longer. Sounds good, right?

Wrong.

There have been recent scientific studies, especially on methylparaben. This particular little nasty has been creeping into our bodies and doing all sorts of nefarious things without us even knowing. It has oestrogen like properties - it mimics oestrogen - which has been found in breast cancer cells/tissue, and it is under investigation whether methylparaben and breast cancer may be possibly linked.
When it is absorbed by the skin, it bypasses the metabolism, which can be a real problem; because of it mimicking oestrogen, men that use lotions on their bodies that contains methylparaben are at risk of infertility. A study also showed that men that used a paraben lotion on their skin had parabens present in their blood and urine for a long time after.

Ok, so that's men covered. Let's get to the beauty side of this...

Scientific studies show that 19% of skin cells that contain methylparaben, when exposed to UVB light, de-oxiginate and die, destroying the DNA of the cells in the process. It causes premature ageing. Parabens in eye drops damages the lining of your eyes and even causes cornea damage too. 

Worried yet?

I'm terrified.

This stuff is absorbed easily into our skin. It is put in anti-ageing products, sun creams, skin care lotions, and a massive variety of makeup.

And before people even bother to say "Oh, but the amounts in the products are hardly enough to cause those kind of problems! Don't be so dramatic!", I have to point out this:
Say you use a paraben containing shampoo, body lotion, facial moisturiser, hand cream, foundation, blusher, pressed powder, primer, eyeshadow and lipstick every single day... Imagine how many parabens are being absorbed on a daily basis. Now times that by how many days over how many years you've kept that routine, and then add how much time you've spent in the sun, possibly adding the amount of paraben-containing SPF sun cream you've used... And voila. 

Ooookay. Rant over. Many apologies but it's been slowly driving me crazy.




No comments:

Post a Comment