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Sun Jan 23, 2005 4:52 pm  |
I was reading an article about Ole Henrikson the other day, in which it said:
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| He has a few other pet peeves, too. If you're going to avoid any ingredient, make it propylene glycol, another name for mineral oil. "It has no calmative, soothing benefits or ideal hydrative benefits, but it's an inexpensive filler and some of the most expensive creams in the world have it as an ingredient," he says. |
I try to pay a lot of attention to what is in my skincare items, but often you dont know till you have the box in your hand and a full ingredients list.
I always try to avoid Propylene glycol as well as parabens (though I relaxed this to try JB products) and Myristate (synthetic oils that can clog the skin).
I was wondering, how much attention does everyone else here pay to what is in their skincare? Does it bother anyone else that the most expensive lines seem to have the most chemicals in them? |
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Wed Jan 26, 2005 2:06 pm |
This has been blown WAY out of proportion.
And re: the quote from OH. What's said is completely untrue.
I agree w/ pbsadhaka. Even if PG was used in antifreeze, the only thing that proves, is that it's used in antifreeze.SO WHAT. (Not that I'm saying it's impossible reactions can't occur from it, it's possible, but most people avoid it on ignorance.
Natural, organic, herbal, botanical or plant extracts are often used but many of these are known allergens or promote contact dermatitis. Plant ingredients are more chemically complex than simple man-made synthetic ingredients, so there is higher probability of adverse reactions due to the larger number of constituents. While the specific chemicals of synthetics are known, the precise chemical content of many plants remains unknown. There may also be variations from location, growing conditions, pesticide and fertilizer use, and even the time of harvest. Many natural ingredients are processed in very unnatural ways. Further, unnatural synthetic preservatives are often used with them to give the product a long shelf life.
hths
PS, You can de-rust an engine with Pepsi. It's highly caustic. It remains one of the best selling beverages in the world, and arguably worse than common skincare ingredients that have been sensationalized. |
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Wed Jan 26, 2005 4:40 pm |
Oh, don't worry about it. I wasn't attacking you at all. Sorry if it came across that way. I know it's a forum...that's why I posted information as well.
Let me clarify furthur, and give you some other possibly helpful tidbits of info. I found them interesting, I love any and all things relating to skin and skincare LOL.
(By the way, I've never seen it listed on bottles of anti-freeze but I don't really seek it out either, so if you've seen them there, I don't doubt it one bit)
Let's say for the sake of argument that it was listed. That's not really cause for concern.
Some people may or may not know that Salicylic acid is used to burn off warts, genital or on hands, feet. It's also a common skincare ingredient used at lower %'s to help acne.
That may or may not have been a good representation of PG and antifreeze, but I'm just saying that just because PG is in antifreeze, doesn't mean someone should avoid it. And, for a lot of time people hear of an ingredient irritating others, or breaking people out, and therefore they avoid it.
Citric acid (a hydroxy acid that can also serve as an exfoliant in higher concentrations)is used in a lot of things, from soft drinks to cosmetics. In cosmetics it's a pH adjuster.
To quote the OH post above, "If you're going to avoid any ingredient, make it propylene glycol, another name for mineral oil. It has no calmative, soothing benefits or ideal hydrative benefits, but it's an inexpensive filler and some of the most expensive creams in the world have it as an ingredient,"
PG is not another name for mineral oil. Mineral oil is close to petrolatum and is VERY calming, soothing and has GREAT hydrating properties. It is very inexpensive.
About Petrolatum: It remains one of the most effective ways to repair the barrier, even at concentrations as low as 5% and routinely outperforms more elegant, sophisticated moisturizer formulations in controlled trials.
Propylene/butylene glycol can be irritating to some skins. Propylene glycol is a hydrator at concentrations below 10% and is keratolytic at concentrations below 40%.
Just food for thought! For some ingredients, there is a line between helpful and harmful.
I don't avoid parabens, they're just preservatives and used in minute amounts. I do avoid myristates, and most essential oils. An as far as chemical sunscreen goes, it's very irritating on my skin so I don't use it. But, chemical s/s is better than nothing...if it came down to being anal about chemicals on my skin and getting skin cancer, I'd be putting chemicals on my skin.
I hope I didn't sound like I was attacking you, I barely thought about the fact that you said it. I just wanted to clear up a few myths.
Don't apologize at all! Sometimes it's hard for people to know how someone meant things because we're not listening, we're reading.  |
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Wed Jan 26, 2005 6:27 pm |
The whole PG thing is blown out of proportion in my opinion too. First of all, there are different grades of propylene glycol - industrial, cosmetic, and also food grade. It is present in most prepackaged foods and dairy products. Although there are warnings on MSDS sheets, most people don'tknow how to read or interperet those warnings. Those sheets are written for the product in it's concentrated form ( >98-99%). It is NEVER used in that concentration - not even in industrial solvents.
Also, just because there is a MSDS for it, doesn't mean that it's necessarity a toxic chemical. There are MSDS sheets for NATURAL chemicals as well. For everything from aloe vera juice to essential oil of lavender. I would much rather put propylene glycol on my skin that essential oil of clove for example.
The MSDS sheets on hyaluronic acid have all kinds of warnings for contact w/the skin & eyes, but it is one of the most sought after (and beneficial) ingredients in skincare today.
All I was trying to say is that there are different grades of PG, and if used properly in formulations, can actually be beneficial to the skin.
I don't think that any of us are attacking each other here...we are all trying to learn from each other!  |
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Fri Jan 28, 2005 4:53 am |
| Keratolytic agents are really neither good or bad...they just do what they do. They are compounds that when applied topically unclog pores by breaking up the keratinized subum that hold together clusters of dead skin cells on the surface of the skin. This is nothing but a form of exfoliation. Keratolytic agents inlcude benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid, & retin-A, among others. Exfoliation is good, but certrain keratolytic compounds are more drying & irritating to certain skin types than others. |
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Fri Dec 15, 2006 8:34 am |
"The Great Chemical debate??". Debate what??
Did you know that your entire body is made up of "chemicals"? Did you know that water is a "chemical". Did you know that air is a "chemical". If you are afraid of "chemicals" then you better move off of the planet because EVERYTHING on this planet is made of chemicals.
Well, I guess you can tell, as a cosmetic chemist, that this is one of my pet peeves!
Please, please, please don't fall for this chemical scare thing. And please don't fall for advertisements that say their product is "chemical free"! That is absolute hogwash. Nothing, except for the deep vacuum of outer space is
'chemical free'!
Look, the FDA, the CTFA, cosmetic companies and cosmetic chemists use "chemicals" that are deemed safe for use in all of their products. We do NOT use "chemicals" that are going to be harmful to you in any way. If we did we would be setting ourselves up for the biggest lawsuit the world had ever seen. The "chemicals" that we use have been used for years, are proven safe, and do make good cosmetic products. It doesn't matter if it is synthetically made, organically grown or simple grown by good old mother nature.
I personally use products with: propylene glycol, parabens, mineral oil and all of the other so called "chemicals" that the average public seems to be scared of. I will continue to use these "chemicals" because they will not harm me.
Don't hesitate to buy products with these materials in them.
John |
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President and Chief Formulator for "Never Over The Hill Cosmetics" |
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Fri Dec 15, 2006 8:55 am |
I suspect that this is going to be a very unpopular statement, but what the hell, it has never stopped me before....
I DO read labels - carefully, in fact. And if a product has an ingredient that I deem to be either harmful or just not good for my particular skin type, I won't use it. But, with that said, I think all this "anti-chemical", all natural stuff is starting to be a major load of horseshit! I went thru the whole organic thing when I was in my early twenties. But, the fact is that we live in the 21st century and I'd like to think that science has provided us with certain advances in the field of anti-aging.
Sometimes, I see members of this board and others ranting about the use of certain preservatives, and I wonder.... Would you rather use a serum that has some pernicious anaerobic (or aerobic, for that matter) happily progressing in the lush and nutritious environment some of the stuff we use has got to be for them?
My response is one of amusement when I see someone draw back in horror over a product that isn't allllllllllllllll natural, and then proceed to smear something full of cow piss all over themselves 
And, please - don't tell me about how women in the developing sector have beeee-yoooo-teeee-ful skin without the use of any chemicals. I've been there - it isn't true. Though I will admit that in some places, where the average life expectancy is somewhere around 40 years of age, people die with skin that is still chock full of collagen!
Ok - I'm done.  |
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Fri Dec 15, 2006 9:25 am |
| John, I would like to politely disagree with your statement that the "average public" is "scared" of chemicals. First of all, this board's readership could not by a long shot be considered the "average public." I know for a fact that 9 out of 10 women are more than happy to cover themselves from head to toe in whatever cream or lotion they get their hands on and never once even glance at the ingredients. In my opinion, whether or not we actually agree as a group on which ingredients are benign and which ingredients are detrimental is immaterial--- the sheer fact that we are reading ingredients lists, trying to figure out what the ingredients are, and then trying to decide for ourselves whether or not we have a comfort level with using said ingredients shows, in my opinion, that far from being frightened sheep that have bought into some organic marketing scam, we are thoughtful and intelligent consumers. Maybe ingredients like silicones, petrochemicals, etc aren't actually poisonous, but many people like me have found that such occlusive materials cause us clogged pores and grief that we don't need, and so we choose to avoid them. Not because we are scared, but because we are making an educated decision for ourselves as to the best way to treat our skin. Personally, I prefer to use "natural" products---- not only because I want to avoid silicones, petrochemicals, etc, but also because as a strict vegetarian I do not wish to use any product that contains animal by-products. I'm not scared of animal by-products, but I know what I want in a skincare product and I'm not afraid to ask for it. I understand that as a chemist you can feel a certain degree of frustration when you hear people maligning chemicals or ingredients that you work very closely with. My husband is a chemical engineer and we have had many fascinating discussions about various ingredients, although interestingly enough he's even more leery of many ingredients in my skincare products than I am. I'm not trying to hassle you, John, and I hope what I wrote doesn't come across overly vituperative. I'm just trying to represent the other side of the coin. |
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27, sensitive/reactive/acne prone skin, dark brown hair, blue eyes, possibly the palest woman alive... |
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Fri Dec 15, 2006 9:52 am |
Thanks for clearing that up, John.^-^
Also, I'd like to add that just because something is FDA approved or even widely-used, that doens't necessarily mean that it's recommended to use it.
I'll give you an example: when my husband and I first got married, he was uncomfortable with the anti-bacterial handwashes I placed at all of our sinks and he told me as much. At first I was kind-of irritated--- I mean, I've heard of lay people getting unreasonably scared about this ingredient or that, but my husband is a man of science! He shouldn't be bothered by a little triclosan, right??? However, my husband explained to me why he didn't like it, showing me studies and articles that pointed to the possibility of the tricolsan and its brothers and sisters encouraging bacteria to grow immune to such ingredients, and also articles that pointed to the possibility of this anti-bacterial material being aborbed and stored in our bodies over time, eventually potentially comprimising our immune system. Whether you give credence to these studies or not, it's something to think about, and it's kind-of a crap shoot as to whether or not that ingredient in large amounts or over long periods of time will cause harm or not. In the end I chose to agree with my husband. I don't avoid triclosan entirely, but I now have non-anti-bacterial handwashes in our house which seem to work just as well, and for other methods of hand sanitizing I try to use alcohol, tea tree oil, etc. |
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27, sensitive/reactive/acne prone skin, dark brown hair, blue eyes, possibly the palest woman alive... |
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Sat Dec 16, 2006 8:08 pm |
Over the past several years, I've become a pretty passionate label reader, and I'm quite strict about learning about the source, purpose, and possible effects of the ingredients of the products that I use.
Also, I do think it's import to understand that the FDA's role with regard to regulating cosmetics is more limited than many people assume. The following is from the FDA website and briefly explains the agency's cosmetics oversight functions.
"The regulatory requirements governing the sale of cosmetics are not as stringent as those that apply to other FDA-regulated products. Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act, cosmetics and their ingredients are not required to undergo approval before they are sold to the public. Generally, FDA regulates these products after they have been released to the marketplace. This means that manufacturers may use any ingredient or raw material, except for color additives and a few prohibited substances, to market a product without a government review or approval." |
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Mon Dec 18, 2006 4:41 pm |
ScotsLass, the reason all the scientific "big wigs" aren't jumping out of their chairs over this site is because we are too busy picking ourselves up off the floor from laughing at it!
Seriously, virtually all the formulators, consultants, scientists, lecturers, and businessmen that I talk with in the industry literally have a good hearty laugh over the misinformation listed in sites like Skin Deep. What is the point of going after a site like this? We have our test methods, we have the safety testing data, we have our testing labs, we have the FDA to answer to. They have nobody to answer to on the world wide rumor mill know as the internet.
It has become harder and harder to work in the cosmetic industry. Everyone is going on to become (or is) ISO 9000 or higher certified. In the very near future everyone will need to be cGMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) certified. In order to get these certifications you have to PROVE, beyond a doubt that all of the materials that you use have passed all clinical safety testing (Geez, I'll probably get the PETA people mad now). In addition, it is getting so regulated and tightly controlled that most of the big houses such as Estee, Coty, L'Oreal, Johnson and Johnson ect. require a known lineage on all raw materials. In other words, if you use a certain ingredient in a product that ingredient and every ingredient must be traced back to its ORIGINAL source! That means we will have to trace things like mineral oil all the way back to the actual mine or mineral dig site that the product was taken from, and have all the safety data with every step of the process. In natural products it will have to be traced back all the way to the exact farm that it came from. I don't know about you, but I can't think of another industry on the planet that has become so safety regulated as the Cosmetic Industry.
Feel free to say otherwise, but knowing what I know, I would not hesitate to put any chemical listed in the INCI dictionary on my skin, or hair at any time.
John |
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President and Chief Formulator for "Never Over The Hill Cosmetics" |
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