Product Safety: a Useful Database

Cosmetic product safety is ever important. I have written before about certain ingredients which are best avoided. You can check if these ingredients are in your product by looking at the ingredients list (also known as the INCI list). But I realise that for many, this is like reading “Double Dutch”.

Skin Deep

But help is here! If you want to see how much damaging substances your cosmetics product contains, you can consult the database of ‘Skin Deep‘. This is an enormous (American) database listing more than 50,000 products! Gigantic! It indicates, on a scale from 0 to 10, per product, if they contain damaging substances. You can search by brand or product. If a product scores higher than a 7 (high hazard), I would start to wonder if you should actually be (or carry on) using it.

Why Skin Deep?

The reason for this database is as follows:”Companies are allowed to use almost any ingredient they wish, and our government doesn’t require companies to test products for safety before they’re sold“.

This list has been compiled in order to protect us from ingredients which are not allowed to be used or are restricted in their use in cosmetic products. One problem is that this list is far from complete. In the USA, for example, 89% of the ingredients have still not been assessed for their safety. Luckily, the rules in Europe are much more stringent than in the USA.

This database does not contain information on whether a product contains active substances such as Niacinamide or specific anti-oxidants. Its purpose is purely about product safety. There is much more to tell you about this, and so will be continued.

Regards Jetske.

(Dr. Jetske Ultee – Research Physician Cosmetic Dermatology)

You can also read ‘Research Has Revealed That…’
and ‘Angel Dusting’.