Natural and organic beauty: a response

Colin has been an active member of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists since 1985, and in 1999, organised the first of the Formulate shows. His degree is in environmental science, and he continues to take a keen interest in the impact of human activities on the planet. Here he responds to Peter Melchett’s article for the Soil Association from the September issue.

I have thoroughly enjoyed and continue to enjoy my career as a cosmetic scientist, but it was not actually my first choice. I started as a lab technician in an analytical lab and then went on to do a degree in environmental science. I had wanted to express my youthful enthusiasm for making the world a better place by working to protect the environment. As it turned out, there was little call for that kind of scientist when I graduated and I ended up almost by chance in a cosmetic laboratory. But it transpired my passion for green issues has proved to be quite relevant to my professional activities. I still regard myself as Green with a capital G and have a lot of sympathy with the Soil Association. With the population of the world heading towards 12 billion, the pressures on the planet are going to need the most extraordinary management if we are going to avoid some kind of disaster. I am glad the Soil Association are doing the work they are doing to promote organic farming. Twelve billion people are going to need a lot of dinners. As it stands we have only four food production systems: conventional, hydroponic, hunting/gathering and organic. This is certainly not too many, and is probably too few. We cannot afford to lose the organic sector. I have also had occasion to work with the Soil Association and found them to be honest, honourable and sincere people. So I certainly do not bear them any ill will whatsoever. So I felt not so much disappointed as betrayed when I read the article in last month’s Personal Care by Peter Melchett of the Soil Association. It just seemed to be so far from what I want to hear from those quarters. It was quite a diatribe and I think to rebut each point in turn would be tedious to read, even if it would be therapeutic to write. I also do not want to set up some kind of battle between the personal care industry and the environmental movement. If nothing else, with the world getting hotter and more crowded I think we can all appreciate the efforts of the people making the deodorant. So instead, I will try to show how the personal care industry fits into the bigger picture. Do bear in mind that I am not just a cosmetic chemist, I am also a Green, so what I say is as likely to infuriate the suits as it is the sandals. It seems that there are three main areas where the cosmetic industry needs to be aware of its wider responsibilities to society. The products need to be made in as non-intrusive and sustainable way as possible. They should not damage the environment or harm the workers who are making them. In use products should be safe for the people using them. Buying a product should not require a degree in chemistry or the necessity to ‘do your own research’. And it certainly should not require seeking out products that have been specifically approved by self appointed experts. When they have been finished with, they should not harm the environment. Aerosols should not cause global warming. The ingredients that end up going down the sink should not damage water courses. It is incidentally a good indicator of an author’s intentions if they concentrate on my second point. All three should be of equal interest to a sincere environmentalist. Harping on about the bit where the consumer hands over his money suggests the motivation may be far from idealistic. It speaks volumes of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics that they have never once even mentioned the risks of the ingredients they claim to be worried about to the workers who make the cosmetics. The CFSC are n people who should be quoted as authorities on safety in the way Mr Melchett does. So how is our industry doing? It is unfortunate that we still have such a high reliance on petrochemical feedstocks. There are initiatives in this area that need to be encouraged. For example propylene glycol is commonly used as a solvent. I assume this is the material Mr Melchett was thinking of when he referred to antifreeze. All propylene glycol is derived from oil refineries. This does not make it unsafe. The clue here is the ‘refineries’ bit. Chemical engineers are highly skilled at purifying oil into thousands of different products and know exactly what they are doing. But it is not sustainable to use this in the long run. A very good replacement can be made from corn using genetic engineering. Unfortunately this is one of the things explicitly banned by the Soil Association’s standards. I think that on the whole the industry could do more to promote sustainability and reduce its footprint on the planet. I would love for environmental groups to apply more pressure. But the Soil Association’s standards simply do not help if they do not make scientific sense. Are cosmetic products safe for the consumer? You would think not from reading Mr Melchett’s article, but what is the evidence? Nobody dies of shampoo poisoning or a hand cream overdose. Do parabens increase the risk of breast cancer? All we have is a suggestion that there may be some affinity between parabens and cancer tumours. Even this is disputed, but even if we concede it, we are still a long way from demonstrating a cause and effect. There is no study that links high use of personal care products with decreased lifespan. In fact if there is a correlation it must be the other way around. Countries with a high level of use of personal care products are the ones with the longest lifespans. If I were to set myself the project of setting guidelines to make cosmetics healthier I would not know where to start. There simply is no data on which to base such a thing. I would have expected an environmentally-focused group like the Soil Association to take the effect of cosmetics on the environment rather seriously. But it does not come up. I wonder why not? Let me fill in the gaps. Most cosmetic ingredients are a lot more natural than you would think from their names. Many of them are simply modified fats and oils. When they get into the environment, as most of them do, bacteria have no difficulty in disposing of them. But there are some issues that need to be looked at. For a start, as the population rises the amount of cosmetic product disposed of will rise. The burden is rising; we need to keep on top of whether ecosystems can continue to cope. I would be interested to see the industry commissioning some investigations into what happens to our products when they are disposed of. Of particular concern are the small number of ingredients that are chemically stable and oil soluble. Two good examples are triclosan and the parabens. Both of these have the potential to accumulate in food chains. In the case of parabens this is purely theoretical – no data that I know about has ever shown it happening. But to adapt an aphorism from another discipline, it is the dose that makes the poison. The more personal care products get sold the more ends up in the food chain. In the case of triclosan it has reached levels in water courses in some locations high enough to interfere with water treatment. This is something we should be concerned about, even if no serious harm has yet been done. Would it not be great if an industry body like the IFSCC took the lead in investigating this? And would it not be great if we could work with the Soil Association to do so?