Whether you’re a savvy beauty shopper or not, there are some tricky ingredients out there that basically take a chemistry degree to fully understand their function. In fact, if you read the ingredients on most of the items in your bathroom cabinet, you might find that they sound foreign to you. But knowing what is going onto your skin is important. Active ingredient or not, chances are, whatever it is, could effect you. That’s the thinking of non-government organizations that call upon the FDA to strictly regulate known toxins in personal care products.
One such fight to ban a potential carcinogen in beauty products is going on right now. Friends of the Earth United States and Australia (FoE) is calling on the FDA to ban anatase titanium dioxide in sunscreen in the US. This comes after recent testing found that many popular sunscreens currently on the market, as well as other cosmetic products, contain a hazardous form of it. Conducted by the Australian Government’s National Measurement Institute, the research is troubling to many looking to avoid free radicals that could potentially cause skin cancer.
A number of peer-reviewed studies have found that the anatase form of titanium dioxide can increase the formation of free radicals when in sunscreens and exposed to elements like sunlight and water. However, there has been contradictory evidence that states that it is only when titanium dioxide is present in food, and not cosmetics, that there be cause for concern.
But if you are concerned, the Environmental Working Group has lists of sunscreens without the chemical on their website.