by Jen Novakovich.
Preservatives are some of the most controversial ingredients around, but why? Unpreserved or poorly preserved cosmetic products would present a serious public health concern for consumers. And yet ‘preservative-free’ product claims abound? This can lead to the belief that preservatives are not only unnecessary but potentially harmful. In this post we’ll cover what preservatives do, cases of contaminated products, types of preservatives out there and the legality of these claims. If you currently believe preservatives are nothing but bad news I implore you to read on with an open mind and try to take what I say in the best possible light.
Why are preservatives used in cosmetic products?
Cosmetic products are preserved to keep us safe. No matter how sterile the manufacturing space and packaging are and how careful we are making the products, as soon as water is introduced into a formulation, microbial growth is inevitable. On top of this, even if the product was able to get to you from manufacturer free of microbe growth, you probably aren’t bubble boy right? Most likely your products are kept in the bathroom where it steams up every time you hop in the shower. Every time you interact with a product you are introducing it to new microbial life. Without preservatives, each one of these interactions would be comparable to a game of Russian roulette. All it takes is one small group of bad microbes to turn your cream from this
To this
At the end of the day, especially in light of how we like to treat our products, cosmetics need to be safe to use during their full shelf life and the only way that’s possible is preservation and challenge testing, to make sure the product can stand up to the microbe pressures of the consumer.
Some of the microbes that have found growing in cosmetic products ranging from lipsticks to lotions include: Pseudomonas sp.(second most common infection in hospitals), Acinetobacter sp (can cause life threatening infections in people who are immunocompromised), Klebsiella (pneumoniae causing), Citrobacter freundii (can cause life threatening infections in people who are immunocompromised), Staphylococcus aureus & epidermidis (causes Staph infections), Streptococcus sp. (causes strep throat and meningitis), Candida sp. (can cause thrush or systemic infection which kills about 50% of infected), Aspergillus sp. (produces the toxin aflatoxin), and many more.
To exacerbate the issue further, natural products tend to be more prone to microbe growth than conventional ones. There’s typically a lot more bioavailable nutrients for bacteria to feed and flourish on. Our skin may love plant extracts and proteins but unfortunately, so do bacteria. Given that most of the ‘preservative-free’ claims on cosmetic products are in the natural sector, this can become a big problem! To add to this, many people changing to all natural are doing so after a health scare or disappointments with conventional products or drugs.These consumers don’t necessarily have a strong immune system to begin with. At the end of the day, no matter if the product is synthetic or natural, proper preservation is of utmost importance.
So what? What’s the worst that could happen?
Think I’m overstating the importance of preservation in cosmetics? Well, let’s talk about some recent cases of cosmetic contamination. In an example presented by Formula Botanica, In Barcelona 2006 at the Universitari del Mar Hospital, five patients were in critical condition due to a bacteremia lower respiratory tract and urinary tract infection. The culprit was the bacterium Burkholderia cepacia, normally lives in soil and water but can spread easily from person to person and present a serious risk for the immunocompromised. Eventually, they found out that the bacteria came from moisturizing lotion that the Intensive Care Unit personal applied to their patients. Further investigation found that the lotion was contaminated at production, shipment or storage. In this case, nobody died, but that’s not always the case. For example, at King Abdulaziz University Hospital in 2009, over fifteen babies were infected with Serratia marcescens from their baby shampoo resulting in one death. Regarding products like eyeliners and mascaras (which are inherently riskier due to how many microbes we introduce per application plus where they’re being applied), there have been numerous cases of consumers going blind from their makeup. Just hop on Google and search ‘cosmetic product recalls from contamination’ and you’ll see that this isn’t just a problem of the past, occurring way too regularly today in 2018.
Now, I’m sorry to be a fear monger here with these examples, but with what we already know about the importance of proper preservation and this growing trend of “preservative free” products I feel public conscious on the issue is in a dangerous place. It’s especially vital that anyone who’s formulating understands this and also helpful for consumers so they know which products to avoid. Outbreaks like the ones above would not only be sad for those affected but could also likely end a small business without the financial backing of the conglomerates in the industry.
So, all products need preservatives?
No all products do not need preservatives. Any formula that incorporates water, with a couple of exceptions, needs a preservative. These products include lotions, creams, shampoos, and makeup. If the product is likely to be contaminated, for example in eyeliner or mascara, even if the product doesn’t have water, it’ll need a preservative. Products that don’t necessarily require a preservative include water-free (anhydrous) products such as balms or oil-based serums, or products that have a very high or low pH, such as castile soap and bar soap. Certain packaging can also help out with lowering your preservative requirements. For example, aerosols have less contact with air and the consumer, therefore, require much less preservation.
For natural formulators, there are a lot of options for you, but creating an effective preservation system can be quite tricky and takes a bit more innovation. For consumers, if there’s water in a formulation and no preservatives, this should be a big red flag. If the product is water-based, stable and lives through its shelf life with a preservative-free claim, flat out they’re lying. For example, companies will often hide their preserving ingredients in the fragrance ingredients/essential oils or in other ingredients not classically defined as a preservative, for example, alcohol. Another trick is using ingredients that have been preserved with a paraben, and only including that ingredient on the ingredient list. I personally think the claim “preservative free” should be illegal on cosmetic products due to how much confusion it’s spreading among consumers, but more on that later.
Preservatives found in cosmetic products.
Common conventional preservatives
The big pro for synthetic preservatives is their broad-spectrum effectiveness at very low concentrations. In addition, many synthetic preservatives are actually less allergenic, especially because they are needed at such low amounts, than their natural counterparts. For the cons, most of the health scares for cosmetics seem to lie within this ingredient category. Below I’ll take you through some of the controversies. While you’re going through this section, it’s important to keep in mind a few things. Firstly, these ingredients are used at very low concentrations (e.g. about 0.3% of a formula). Secondly and most importantly, a properly preserved product, with any type of available cosmetic preservative, synthetic or not, will always be safer than an unpreserved or poorly preserved product. Example, would you rather find out you have an allergy or a staph infection?
Parabens:
Different types include methyl-, ethyl-, propyl-, isobutyl-paraben, etc. Parabens are widely used because they’re very effective at a low dose, especially compared to all the other preservatives out there. They have no smell or color, are very easy to use, and are generally well tolerated by our skin. At the same time, parabens are one of the most vilified ingredients in the cosmetic industry. The scrutiny seems to stem from a 2004 study, which found traces of parabens in breast tumors. It’s important to note that this study didn’t compare levels of parabens in normal breast tissue to cancerous breast tissue. Instead, journalists reporting on this study drew their conclusions based on the assumption that parabens were found at a higher level in individuals with breast cancer.
Today, parabens are thought to be weak estrogen mimics and potential endocrine disruptors, implicated in a variety of hormonal related problems such as breast cancer, testicular cancer, and declining sperm counts. With that said, in my research through the available literature, most of the conclusions related to adverse health effects were made from anecdotal assumptions or had really unrealistic methods. What do I mean? There hasn’t been a replicated study to show that parabens (especially the ones most commonly used in cosmetics, methyl & ethyl-) cause endocrine or hormonal disruption (especially at the dosage in your cosmetic products) in humans, and there hasn’t been a study that concluded with significant evidence that these chemicals cause the above health issues. Just because it’s seen in tissues doesn’t mean it’s causing harm. Correlation does not mean causation. More studies need to compare paraben concentrations in healthy tissues to diseased tissues, and to determine the actual biological effects (from amounts comparable to our exposure). With respect to the unrealistic methods, most of these studies included mouse models. In the studies, they often included high dose ingestion or frequent application of parabens. I say unrealistic because these would be over 100 times greater concentration for the mice than what’s in an entire cosmetic product. To add, we don’t typically use a product in one application. Instead, we’ll use it over a longer time frame, like a month in the case of shampoo. I’m not going to conclude that parabens are good or bad for our health, but it’s important to know the limitations of the research. More studies need to be done to say conclusively that parabens, at the low levels used in cosmetics, are damaging to our health.
It’s worth noting that, with respect to endocrine disruption, while parabens are a weak estrogen mimic, Butylparaben (one of the more estrogenic parabens, these effects increase with carbon chain length/branching) is 10,000 times less potent than estradiol, which they compete with to bind receptors to have an estrogenic effect. Due to a rapid metabolism of parabens, if they do have estrogenic effects, it’s probably not through directly activating estrogen receptors.
More concrete troubling conclusions seem to lie within environmental studies. For example, although more than 90% of parabens are removed from our wastewater via treatment plants, they’re still very frequently found in aquatic ecosystems across all of our oceans, particularly methyl- and propylparaben, despite being biodegradable. With that said, while they are found throughout our worldwide aquatic ecosystems, we don’t really know if they’re actually having an adverse effect on them. More studies need to be done, again, to determine the biological impacts of these ingredients. Given how much more potent our own hormones are, especially when we take things like birth control pills, how do parabens interact with the environment compared to our pee? So many questions yet to be answered.
In cosmetics, many paraben types have been tested to be well tolerated on our skin up to levels of 25%. In contrast, these ingredients typically range from 0.01 to 0.3% in a product. After extensive testing, parabens seem to be the least allergenic preservatives on the market. But, because of some of the research mentioned above, there’s been incredible pressure on the industry to find alternatives. Unfortunately, the alternatives are often more allergenic… which isn’t good news for our emerging skin allergy epidemic. This epidemic may be being driven by antibacterial agents, like parabens and other preservatives, by altering our skin microflora? There’s so much going on here and so much uncertainty now that we’re learning more about our bacterial inhabitants.
To be continued…
