Do you know what goes into the makeup and beauty products you apply to your face and skin? Do you know whether those ingredients are harmful to your health?
Are you aware of the various cosmetics, shampoos, and other items’ effects on your skin and health? You might think that a breakout of pimples or a rash can be attributed to your diet or a sickness, while it could be easily explained by the ingredient in your makeup and beauty products. In 2021, consumers need to be made more aware of the ingredients and products they use.
Investigating this is, thankfully, easier today than it was a decade or less ago. Companies must be more transparent about what ingredients they use in their products, and the Internet has meant people are able to research such areas. Reading customers’opinions of companies in the beauty industry will teach us which ones make products we should avoid, which ingredients can be harmful to our health, and how to shop for the best products. That’s why platforms such as Reviews Bird are so popular: these peer review websites provide the space for real-world customers to share their experiences, their insights, and knowledge for others to make better-informed shopping decisions.
The thing about beauty products is that they can be absorbed by the body and those ingredients can enter our bloodstream. These can lead to a number of health problems. Here is a list of ingredients you must avoid in your beauty products:
1) Parabens:
These are preservatives found in most beauty products, unfortunately. It is used in products that contain water as parabens are bacteria-fighting elements that can make a product last longer on a shop’s shelf. Look for the words: methyparaben, proplyparaben, isopropylparaben and isobutylparaben. Those are to be strictly avoided. What these parabens can do to your body is frightening: they can create severe hormone imbalances and are known to cause breast cancers in some instances.
2) Artificial Fragrance and Parfum:
Nearly all beauty products are scented. These scents are often created with artificial fragrances. Companies are not obliged to disclose what exactly they use to create these fragrances in their products, but they are found to usually contain carcinogens, allergies, endocrine disruptors, and irritants. Rather invest in products with listed scents.
3) Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and Sodium Laureth Sulfate:
These are what creates the foam in products such as shampoos, soaps and even toothpastes. They can cause skin irritations and trigger allergies. What’s more, some of the chemicals in these sodium (also known as SLS and SLES) contacting nitrosamines. These are harmful by-products of sulfate processes and 90 percent of nitrosamines are carcinogenic.
4) Toluene:
This is an ingredient you’ll find in most nail polishes and hair dyes. These are harmful petrochemical solvents that can damage your immune system can are known to lead to birth defects if used during pregnancies.
5) Formaldehyde:
It is another preservative used in beauty products. Formaldehyde is most often used in cosmetics and is a known carcinogenic that can also cause asthma, neurotoxicity, and developmental toxicity.