Organic My Ass - Part 1

Rejoice science geeks, it's another exciting installment of Show Your Working! Today we'll be looking at the increasingly valuable label "organic", and what it actually means it terms of cosmetics.

(spoiler alert: very little)

I'll be doing this in two sections, one for Australia and one for the US, because the relevant legislation is quite different, and putting it together would turn this into a Masters essay rather than a blog post.

Before we really get into the nitty gritty, I just want to put it out there that I don't actually give a damn if something is organic or not, so please don't try and start a comment war on the pros and cons. I just...I don't care. I know, I know, I should, and it's probably better for me, but honestly when you have as many allergies as me, adding extra restrictions to what you consume is just more effort than I have in me. (In case you were wondering, my complete list of allergies is currently dairy, gluten, alcohol, peanuts, seafood, aspartame and related fake sugars) Also, I smoke, for heavens sake. Unless I quit sucking in noxious chemicals five times a day, the amount of parabens in my mascara is pretty moot.

BUT I know that it's really important to other people - people like David Lynch, who made a brilliant ad for his signature coffee blend, in which he points out several times that it's both organic and fairly traded. It's also incredibly creepy.

Because I'm a much less compassionate person than I should be, every time I hear someone ask if something is fairly traded, I can't help but hear it in Lynch's weird Barbie voice, and then I can't possibly take them seriously anymore.

However, something that I DO care about rather a lot is truth in advertising. I was enormously pleased to see Estee Lauder coming up against a class action for using misleading claims on their Clinique products, and I wish that sort of thing happened more often. Pseudo science claims like the kind used by Physicians Formula for their "happy blush" make me so angry I virtually froth at the mouth. Way back in the way back times I used to be part of the marketing industry, and one of the reasons I would never go back is the incredible amount of dishonesty involved in the way products are marketed.

EUPHORYL(TM) IS NOT A REAL THING. The marketing department MADE IT UP.

Poison? On MY Nails? - Show Your Working

Being the second post of my (hopefully) ongoing series Show Your Working, where I apply the lens of science and common sense to beauty products.

As a geeky, pedantic sort of girl, it really annoys me when I see things that aren't quite accurate. Honestly, it actually annoys me more than the totally, obviously untrue things that are sometimes said. For example, as someone who studied a great deal of ancient history, I literally twitch every time I see the Roman habit of deciding the life of a gladiator with the motion of a thumb either up or down portrayed the wrong way around. They can have modern fabrics on, and totally inaccurate hairstyles, and I'm fine. But if they do that one little thing that's not quite right....ugh, my jaw is tensing just thinking about it.

Bearing this is mind, I have been reading a lot of posts that reference the Big 3 - chemicals that were previously used in nail polishes and nail hardeners, and that are being more or less phased out currently. The Big 3 are formaldehyde, toulene, and dibutyl phthylate (DBP), which are all generally acknowleded to be "quite killy" as a friend of mine put it. A lot of retailers have declared themselves proudly 3 Free, meaning they don't use any of these ingredients.
I was curious as to whether this really mattered or not, so I went and buried my head in overly complicated diagnostic manuals, and toxicology reports as I am wont to do. Very quickly I came across several inaccuracies in the information being touted in the posts I had read that just made me twitch, so I've pulled all the information together here for you, dear reader, that I might get it out of my system, and also maybe help you make a more informed decision about this issue.

FORMALDEHYDE

I don't know about you, but when I think formaldehyde, I think school science classes. Memories of dead, pale eyes floating in a jar of yellow liquid swim to the front of my mind, and suddenly I'm 12 again, freaking the hell out because I could swear that frog just blinked at me and oh god oh GOD it's leg just fell off!!

...I'm okay.
The point is that the formaldehyde in your nail polish isn't the same as the stuff those poor frogs were floating in. Technically, chemically speaking, it's not really formaldehyde at all. The lovely and brilliant Lab Muffin has a wonderfully succinct explanation of the difference between formaldehyde and the liquid or resin compounds made from it that are used in nail hardeners. 
"When you dissolve formaldehyde in water, it's not just formaldehyde in water (unlike how sugar + water is just sugary water). It actually reacts to form methylene glycol, a different chemical:

The International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients (INCI), which tells cosmetic manufacturers what to write on their ingredient lists, used to require formalin was listed as formaldehyde, as it's made using formaldehyde. However, In 2008, the naming error was corrected.

HOWEVER: the reaction between formaldehyde and water to form methylene glycol is like the reaction between carbon dioxide and water to give carbonic acid. It's a special type of reaction known as a reversible reaction (you can tell from the double arrow). When a carbonated drink is in a bottle, it's not fizzy yet... but when you release the pressure by opening the lid, you get heaps of carbon dioxide gas bubbles. Just like that reverse reaction, under the right conditions, the methylene glycol will turn back into formaldehyde and water. So even if formaldehyde itself isn't in your nail hardening product, it's possible that chemicals which release formaldehyde are!"

So the long and short of it is that there IS something LIKE formaldehyde in your nail hardeners - but not nail polishes. (Also, Michelle from Lab Muffin writes a ton of fascinating posts like this, and you should really read her stuff.) These are the little inaccuracies that annoy the crap out of me, so let's get those sorted out right now. I also couldn't find any evidence that it's possible to absorb formaldehyde or any related substances through your nails, although it is fairly well absorbed when applied to your skin. So
maybe painting yourself all over with nail hardener is not a good plan.
HOWEVER, there does seem to be a pretty good indication that opening a bottle of nail hardener could release formaldehyde gas for you to suck into your pink, absorbent lung tissue. And that's probably bad.
But let's take a look at just HOW bad. Like zinc, formaldehyde does occur naturally in human bodies. But zinc is also extremely toxic in large doses. So how much formaldehyde is needed to take it from harmless to toxic?

According to the U.S based Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry the 15 minute short term exposure limit (STEL) for formaldehyde is 2 parts per million (ppm) The STEL is the maximum recommended amount to which workers can be exposed continuously for a short period of time without suffering from irritation and/or chronic tissue damage. 
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find any concrete information about how much formaldehyde gas is actually released from nail hardeners when you use them. I imagine it also varies pretty wildly depending on the actual product in question, because it would depend on how much formalin was used in the first place, and with what other chemicals. However, since I can smell the formalin in the average nail hardener, it seems safe to assume there is at least 0.5-1 part per million, since this is apparently the concentration at which you can start to smell it. In order to determine the upper estimated limit of how much toxic gas is released, it's useful to look at the effects of damaging levels of exposure to formaldehyde. seem to bring on headaches, dizziness, and difficulty breathing pretty quickly, and at relatively low levels. If you don't get any of these symptoms using a product (and why on earth are you using it if you do), then it seems pretty sensible to me to assume you're not being exposed to toxic levels.

TOLUENE

While formaldehyde makes me think of dissolving frogs legs, toluene just makes me think of Toulouse Lautrec - so much so I had to proof read this section a couple of extra times just to take out the typos where I put in Toulouse instead of toluene. Yeah, I am an ENORMOUS nerd.

Maybe she's grumpy because decent nail polish hasn't been invented yet

Toluene is a solvent, which means it's used to make sure all the ingredients in a nail polish don't clump up into chunky bits and instead make a nice smooth liquid. When it's not in your nail polish making sure all the pigment particles sit smoothly on your nail, it can also be found in fuel acting as an octane booster for Formula 1 racing teams. When looking for a bit less excitement, it can be used in model making instead of glue because if you brush it on carefully enough and place the pieces together quickly, it will dissolve the two edges so they reform as one piece. Sounds like pretty heavy duty stuff, and not exactly something you would want to put on your body. I mean, if it dissolves polystyrene, what the hell is it going to do to my nails?

But is it as bad as it sounds? While you certainly wouldn't want to be putting racing fuel on yourself, the amount of toluene in nail polish is a fraction of the amount used for that sort of purpose. While toluene can be absorbed through skin contact, like formaldehyde, the amount of skin that comes into contact with nail polish is pretty small, no matter how clumsy you are. The vapour released when it dries is however, like just about everything, can be really easily absorbed by the soft squishy parts in your lungs and nose.
So how much can you breathe in before you start bleeding from the nose? The STEL for toluene is 150 parts per million, but as with formaldehyde, I found information on just how much you are likely to ingest from using polish pretty hard to come by. This article features some concrete numbers, but as with almost all studies done by groups with an agenda one way or the other, the results vary enormously. The industry group that was seeking to prove toluene wasn't dangerous came up with quite acceptable numbers, but the group arguing that toluene should be banned came up with a figure nearly five times that of the other study. It's a perfect example actually of how questionable a lot of these "studies" can be. In this case, the two groups weren't even measuring the same action, let alone measuring exposure over the same period of time, so the results are totally incomparable, and their relevance to the debate pretty dubious.
However, the official EU Scientific Committee on Consumer Products (SCCP) found, as recently as October 2006, that toluene, as used in nail polish products, does not pose a risk to health. The California Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65) requires the Governor of California to maintain a list of chemicals "known to the state" to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity, and Toluene is among the ingredients identified by this list. But it also currently categorised as No Significant Risk Level (NSRL) when used in nail products.
In this instance, I'm happy to defer to the organisations with more time and more brains on hand to tease out the details, and go with their suggestion that toulene is nothing to worry about unless you're huffing or drinking your polish. (in which case I think that maybe you have bigger problems)


DIBUTYL PHTHYLATE (DBP)

While formaldehyde and toluene aren't used that many places, and are being progressively used less and less, DBP on the other hand is absolutely EVERYWHERE. As the Australian Government National Pollutant Inventory points out, "Dibutyl phthalate is used extensively throughout society, it is now widespread in the environment. Most people are exposed to low levels in air, water, and food. In many cases the largest source of exposure is from food containing dibutyl phthalate. Some of the dibutyl phthalate in food is from plastics used to wrap and store the food and certain types of food (especially fish and shellfish) may absorb larger quantities of dibutyl phthalate (from 50 to 500 parts per billion). Air and water also contains small levels of dibutyl phthalate. Levels in city air are found to be 0.03 to 0.06 parts per billion. In drinking supplies it is found at 0.1 to 0.2 parts per billion."
Yikes, right? BUT the NPI also goes on to point out "At these low levels dibutyl phthalate is not expected to cause any harmful effects." In fact, the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission have "determined a tolerable daily intake value of 66 μg/kg body weight per day". That means that as someone who weighs 95kg, I could ingest 6270 micrograms of toluene per day without serious side effects.

These probably have DBP in them too

But that's just measuring how much of it we can eat - how much can we breathe in? Quite a bit apparently. Green Facts says "Repeated oral exposure to DBP mainly affects the blood, liver and kidney. No effects were seen at a dose of 152 mg/kg body weight/day" 152 mg, per kilo of body weight, per day. So doing some fast and loose maths again, I could breathe in 14,440mg a day. That seems like an awful lot.
But hey, we all know studies can be biased. Maybe these numbers are all made up by the big pharma companies to sell us nail polish. Putting that aside, the fact is that DBP IS in the air we breathe, the food we eat, in relatively large quantities. Considering we haven't all dropped dead yet, I'm going to go ahead and conclude this stuff isn't nearly as toxic as the other two.  Besides, unless you're going to put yourself in a little bubble and roll around, it seems a little...pedantic to insist on avoiding it in your nail polish. (Although putting yourself in a little bubble and rolling around DOES sound like enormous fun)

I will add though that there is some more recent research which has suggested that DBP might act as an endocrine disruptor - meaning it might stop your endocrine system working as well as it should. Preventing your endocrine system from doing it's thing can "cause cancerous tumors, birth defects, and other developmental disorders. Specifically, they are known to cause learning disabilities, severe attention deficit disorder, cognitive and brain development problems, deformations of the body (including limbs); sexual development problems, feminizing of males or masculine effects on females." However, I couldn't find any information to specifically link the amount of DBP in nail polish to anything like side effects this serious - not from pages that didn't also advocate homeopathy* anyway.  After the hoo-ha over aluminium and alzheimers that was later completely disproven, call me Scully when it comes to "suspected links."

CONCLUSION
None of these things are great. I wouldn't put them in my children's birthday cakes. You shouldn't drink them. You shouldn't hold a bottle of polish containing them to your nose and huff it. But are they worth specifically avoiding? I don't think so.

However, if you're still stressed and want to avoid them anyway, you can chill out, because most major brands are Big 3 free these days anyway. butter London, Calvin Klein, China Glaze, Color Club, Essie, Finger Paints, Hard Candy, Illamasqua, Maybelline Express Finish, Maybelline Salon Expert, Nicole, (some) OPI, MAC, Chanel, Dior, Estee Lauder, Givenchy, Lancome, Lippmann, L’oreal, Revlon, Rimmel London 60 Seconds, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, Sante, Shades by Barielle, Shu Uemura, Sinful Colors and Zoya.....etc etc etc.

Personally, I really couldn't be bothered checking everything I like. From my reading I've come to the conclusion that a lot of the fear around the use of these chemicals is a hurricane in a handbasket. There is very little conclusive evidence it's going to do you any significant harm. By all means, support companies that are making the switch to less toxic formulas - less toxic is always nice. But if you find something you love, and you really really want to wear it, and it's NOT Big 3 free - just listen to Ben Folds and The Muppets, and do it anyway. 

*Just a little side note here - I know some people really believe in homeopathy, and I think that's lovely in the same way that I think religious faith is lovely. I don't have it, but if it makes you happy, knock yourself out. I just think it's appalling when people are conned into paying enormous amounts of money for what is essentially slightly impure water.

Stop talking to us like we're idiots

Welcome to the inaugural post of a series I'm starting called Show Your Working, in which I apply scientific rigour and common sense to various aspects of cosmetics.

One of the things that has kept me away from beauty products and the entire beauty industry for so long is the widespread habit of marketing to their consumers like they're blithering idiots. Instead of just telling us what the product does, they make outrageous, totally unverifiable claims, and then try and make us feel like it's our fault if the product doesn't do what they promised.

Here is the example that is annoying the piss out of me right now - The Clairsonic.

There are many annoyances like it, but this one is my annoyance

It's basically a very fine brush that whizzes around very, very fast, to clean your skin. If they just SAID that, I wouldn't have as much of a problem. But it's all the nonsense they add on that makes me so angry.
Let's start with the liberal usage of "sonic".  Reading this, and knowing what "sonic" actually means (involving, or producing sound OR having a speed equal to that of sound in air), I would expect that this product would claim to be beaming some sort of sonic signal into your skin to make it prettier. So I had a read through the marketing material, expecting a good chuckle at the outrageous claims.

There's lots about how it's really good at cleaning stuff off your skin - which is fair enough. I imagine a rapidly spinning brush WOULD be very good for cleaning your skin, much as an electric toothbrush is better than a normal hand powered one. But all the marketing material reads to me like they expect their audience to be so stupid as to not notice that they plaster "sonic" all over it, without any sort of explanation as to what is "sonic" about it, or why that's good. Even the section on the site entitled "Sonic Benefits" has no mention of any effect that could be attributed to anything other than a rapidly spinning brush. There is ONE mention of "sonic" in relation to the actual function of the device, here;
"Clarisonic Sonic Skin Cleansing Systems use a patented sonic frequency of more than 300 movements per second."
So it doesn't claim to make any sound. Which means it must be sonic because it moves 300 times per second? That's...that's not sonic either. It's SUBSONIC, but I suppose that doesn't sound as good.
(edit: I have been informed this speed of movement DOES in fact qualify this as moving at "sonic" speed. I still don't see what benefit that is supposed to offer though, unless skin cells are running away from it so fast it needs to move faster than sound)
This all means it's really just a rapidly spinning brush for polishing off the dead skin on your face. 

SO WHY NOT JUST SAY THAT.

One of the reasons I am happy to give Lush all of my money is because they DON'T engage in this kind of nonsense. I go in there, ask what a cream does, and the staff say "It makes your skin feel soft, and smell good." And I'm all, "Hell yes, give me some of that." I don't feel ripped off because I know what I'm paying for - the products they have are expensive because certain ingredients are hella expensive. They don't tell me it will do something it won't. They don't fuck me around, and I appreciate that with my wallet.

As I said before, I imagine a rapidly spinning brush WOULD be pretty good at cleaning your skin. But why do they not even bother to provide any sort of practical claim on this front? They compare cleansing with the product to cleansing with "your hands alone" - I don't know about you, but I tend to use soap and water, and maybe even a washcloth if I'm feeling fancy. I've never tried to clean my face with "hands alone." But semantics aside, it seems like a perfectly sellable product. So why talk to us like we're stupid?

I've been doing a lot of reading lately about beauty products and makeup advice etc, in preparation for being able to write something of worth in this blog. And I've noticed that there is a certain pattern of language that goes across all the advertising, and even leaks into the blogs that cover this sort of thing. There is an assumption created by the advertising, and accepted by a lot of the consumers, that if the product doesn't work, it's your fault. You're not putting it on right. You didn't use the right moisturiser. It's not for your skin type. You've got too many blemishes. You didn't brush your skin with a two hundred dollar nailbrush first. Your skin is too "impure". It's your fault.

Take this from the Clairsonic website;
"Typical manual cleansing can leave behind dirt and oil trapped in pores. This build-up can damage the appearance and health of your skin and keep your skin care products from working like they should."

"They're eating my beauty!"

I love that with one sentence, they manage to acknowledge that skin products DON'T work, but still manages to place the blame for this squarely on the consumer.  If only I had known this before - I'm not cleaning my face right, and THAT'S why my stupidly expensive face cream isn't erasing my wrinkles like I was promised it would. It's not because erasing my wrinkles with a cream is a physical impossibility. It's because I don't have this thing! *facepalm* How could I have been so silly? 

It sounds ridiculous when I put it like this, but you read enough of this kind of babble and it starts to make sense. You see it enough places, and it feels like YOU'RE the crazy one. It reminds me of the disorientation I felt after being in Paris for a day or so when I spoke very little French. The signs are in french, the movies are all in French, everyone around me is speaking French...I began to have this weird paranoia in the back of my head that English was just a delusion. That's how I feel when reading these beauty product writeups. There are so many wildly spurious claims, (my favourite is "It really made a difference!" without specifying what KIND of difference) padded out with pseudo scientific mumbo jumbo that you feel like you must be the one who is stupid. We, as consumers, are not as stupid as they treat us. If they just SAY "it cleans your skin really well," we can follow that. If they put in a little diagram comparing it to an electric toothbrush, even better. All perfectly rational, straightforward explanation. But why claim it's "sonic"? JUST TELL ME WHAT IT DOES!!
So much of this material is a conversation that spirals inwards like a fractal, until it makes no sense whatsoever to an outside observer, but the blame is still on you for not following them down the rabbit hole.

And it drives me mad.

Reading these marketing spiels to my boy is my favourite way to see them from an entirely outside light for the complete jibberish they are. He's not interested in makeup in the slightest - he notices if I wear it, but doesn't give a damn if I don't. He doesn't read the magazines, or the advertising, or the blogs. He comes from a delightfully straightforward point of view on these things.
Here's a transcript of me reading the Clairsonic site out loud, and his helpful commentary.

Me: Used and recommended by spas and dermatologists...
The Boy: Which ones?
Me: It doesn't say.
The Boy: Is this like the "many doctors" who told the Republicans you couldn't get pregnant from rape, when it was actually just one total nutcase?
Me:...ANYWAY, apparently Clarisonic Sonic Skin Cleansing Systems use a patented sonic frequency of more than 300 movements per second...
The Boy: That's not sonic. I mean, I'm not a physicist, but I'm pretty sure that's not sonic.
Me: ...to gently, yet thoroughly remove 6X more makeup and 2X more dirt and oil than cleansing with your hands alone.
The Boy: With your hands? LIKE A HEATHEN!!
Me: Cleaner skin is the first step toward healthier skin. And healthier skin is smoother, more radiant and more beautiful.
The Boy: So it's a fancy cleaner then.
Me:...yes. 
The Boy: So why does it cost $200?
Me: Um...it polishes your skin?
The Boy: Like a table?
Me: Ah...sort of?
The Boy: Let me read the testimonials....*grabs the laptop*
The Boy: ''I don't feel clean unless I brush my face!?" What the hell?! Are you a horse? "My skin actually feels like it can breathe, something ordinary cleansing missed the mark on." Maybe if you didn't trowel on a layer of spak filler to try and hide your hideous pores, you wouldn't need to take the top layer of your skin off to feel clean! And this one, " I've already received several comments in the last 2 weeks since the purchase about how great my skin looks". Correlation is not causation, LADY.
Me: *At this point laughing too hard to continue the conversation*


So that's how I deal with an overload of this kind of nonsense, when I feel like the whole world is speaking French and my desire for clear, straightforward explanation of what something actually DOES makes me the only English speaker.

I just wish I didn't have to.