As you become more conscious of the products you put on your body, you are bound to start to notice the ingredient lists of your products. This is where we can gain the best information about the safety and quality of the product we are interested in using. However, while it is essential to read those labels, understanding and making sense of them is a whole other story, as it is not often easy to tell what ingredients are natural and which are synthetic, or which are safe and which are toxic.
As part of this article, I will provide you with a short tutorial to learn the basics of personal care product ingredient labeling and empower you to make the best choices for yourself.
Our journey to optimal health and wellness cannot be complete unless we take what we put on our bodies just as seriously as what we put in our bodies.
Our skin is the largest organ in our body and has numerous functions, from heat regulation to protecting us from foreign microbe invaders. While most of us recognize that our skin plays a major role in our health, too many of us do not realize its permeability to the chemicals it comes into contact with.
Think about everything you put on your skin. Today, this is normally at least a dozen products daily for most of us, like lotions, perfume, shaving cream, soaps, body washes, sunblock, deodorants, antiperspirants, and various make-up products. Do you ever think about how many chemicals from these products enter your body or how they affect your health?
Most of us just stop at putting the products on, not going further to think a little about what actually happens to them. Never mind that, just on top of our skin alone, they can cause various allergic reactions and problems. To add to this, our skin is capable of absorbing more than most of us realize, and the worst part is that whatever our skin absorbs ends up in our bloodstream, liver, and other parts of our body. There, these chemicals can cause all sorts of damage from DNA mutations leading to increased cancer risk, to causing all sorts of toxicities, sensitivities, and damage.
So why are more of us not concerned?
Unfortunately, most of us still live with the idea that if it is on the shelf, then it must be okay. Others of us simply get entranced by the fancy marketing ads. While others simply choose to be ignorant about connecting the dots between all the chemical exposure in our lives and the various conditions or diseases we come down with.
We know today that there are thousands of chemicals in our personal care products, which are either blatantly not safe, whose safety is not fully known, or which have not been properly tested, etc. In fact, even when this or that chemical is not found to pose any harm, no one out there can tell us with 100% certainty what the combinations of the different chemicals together can do, in terms of harmful reactions in our system.
While we may still not know for sure the exact effects of many of the chemicals out there, we do know for sure about some. Many chemicals are directly linked to all sorts of cancers, cell damage, are hormone-disrupting, cause reproductive toxicity, are neurotoxic, immunotoxic, cause liver toxicity, cause all sorts of allergies, and more! Many of these are petrochemical-based, also causing serious environmental harm.
Labeling Background
A general rule of thumb for making sense of food ingredients goes like this: “If you cannot pronounce it and don’t know what it is, then you shouldn’t eat it.”. Unfortunately, this rule does not work well, if at all, for personal care ingredients, as many plant names on labels go by their botanical names, which can be hard to pronounce since they are in Latin, and there are many ingredients, both natural and synthetic, that we will not be familiar with. So we cannot depend on that rule, and unfortunately, there isn’t one easy guideline that we can use for personal care products.
This means the onus is now on the consumer to educate themselves about the ingredients that are present in their personal care products. What is even more troubling is that many countries do not even have laws yet for mandatory ingredient labeling or proper testing. For example, did you know that up to 2006, it was voluntary for a company to state its ingredients on personal care products in Canada? On the other hand, the European Union has what is probably one of the best labeling laws on Earth. Not only have they labeled their products properly for years, but in 2004, they toughened their label laws to also include whether a product contained a known or suspected carcinogen.
So the good news is that positive change is happening and often being brought about by conscious consumers, like yourself, who care about their health and wellbeing, not to mention the impacts that so many of the toxic ingredients have on our Earth. Today, Canada, the United States, and Europe fully have these laws in place. So now it is up to us to make sense of those ingredient labels.
If you would like to dive in and familiarize yourself with the detailed labeling laws of your country, you can look those up online for your specific country.
- If you live in Canada, here are Canada’s Cosmetic Labeling Guidelines.
- If you live in the United States, here are the FDA’s Cosmetic Labeling Guidelines.
Personal Care Ingredients Tutorial
How to recognize and understand plant ingredients on personal product labels
Plant ingredients come from natural, living specimens so we have to cover a bit of biology first. The Plant Kingdom is one of 6 Kingdoms of living species. Anything that is a living species is named according to the Binomial Nomenclature System. This system was first developed by a man named Carolus Linnaeus back in the 1700′s. The purpose of this system was to classify or group all living species on Earth.
Since then, this system has been fully accepted and internationally recognized to this day. However, since it dates back to the 1700s, when Latin was the main academic language, it is not very user-friendly today, when Latin is pretty much obsolete. For this reason, the Latin species names that are used on personal care product labels are difficult for most people to recognize and understand today. Sometimes a manufacturer will use the common English name of the plant, but often they will not, as using the biological name ensures the ingredient can be recognized anywhere in the world. Therefore, it is very helpful to know and recognize this set of ingredients first, as you would hope that natural plant parts make up most of your natural personal care products.
Here are some examples. On an ingredient list I may see any of the following, which all mean the same thing:
- Helianthus annuus
- Helianthus annuus (Sunflower oil)
- Sunflower oil (Helianthus annuus)
- Sunflower Oil
How this nomenclature system works
- Every living thing gets a biological name when it is classified.
- The name is composed of 2 words.
- The first word is always capitalized, the second word is not capitalized (if written properly).
- If typed the two words should be italicized or underlined, if hand written the two words should be underlined separately.
- The first word of the name indicates the genus the species belongs to.
- The second word of the name indicates the actual species name, to refer to a species properly, both words are used.
- Sometimes both words are fully written (i.e. Helianthus annuus) and other times the genus name may be shortened to the first letter, followed by a period, and then followed by the species name (i.e. H. annuus).
- The Latin words usually end in “us”, “es”, “os”, “as” and “is”, but some exceptions apply.
Let us put this into practice and work through some examples.
Personal Care Label Reading Practical Examples
Example 1: Examine the following partial ingredient list**
…Aloe Barbadensis Juice, Triethanolamine, Chamomile Flower Extract, Citrus Grandis Seed Oil…
The first ingredient — Aloe Barbadensis — has two words in the name and is some kind of juice. Notice that it was not written properly by the manufacturer of this product, as the second word should not have been capitalized. Either way, you can probably easily recognize the word “aloe” from the common plant name “Aloe vera”, with this ingredient name being one of its synonyms. So this would be a great natural ingredient to have, as it is the juice of the aloe vera plant.
The second ingredient — Triethanolamine — is a one-word name. If it were a common plant name, we should be able to recognize it to some degree. If it were a plant name written based on the Latin system, we would always see those two words, either fully or abbreviated, as shared above. This leads us to conclude that this is not a natural plant ingredient, but some kind of chemical or synthetic ingredient. If you break this word down, you can get some more clues: tri — ethanol — amine. Perhaps you recognize some clues here: “tri”, meaning three, “ethanol”, a type of alcohol, and “amine”, resembling a term you may be familiar with, “amino acid” (the building block of protein). However, aside from now knowing this to be a chemical ingredient, we don’t have any idea or clues as to whether it is safe or dangerous, and if so, to what degree.
The third ingredient — Chamomile Flower Extract — is a common name for the plant used, and is easy to understand as a natural ingredient.
The fourth ingredient — Citrus Grandis — contains two words, both with typical Latin endings, and even though that second word is not in lower case, knowing what you learned above, you can probably easily tell that this is a plant name. We then get even more clues, one is the word “citrus” and two, is the word “seed”. Both indicate that this is some type of plant and its parts. If you were to look this up, you would learn that it is actually the Latin name of grapefruit. So the ingredient is grapefruit seed oil.
Example 2: Examine the following partial ingredient list**
…CETYL ALCOHOL, THEOBROMA CACAO BUTTER, CARBOMER 940, GLYCERIN, DMDM HYDANTOIN, GREEN TEA EXTRACT, CUCUMIS SATIVUS, TOCOPHEROL ACETATE…
Did you notice that the manufacturer wrote everything using capitals, which makes it harder to detect the biological names of items?
The first ingredient — CETYL ALCOHOL — has two words in it, however based on the fact that the word alcohol is included you can dismiss it right away from being a plant based ingredient or a formal Latin plant name.
The second ingredient — THEOBROMA CACAO BUTTER — is made of two words and a third common English name. The middle word “cacao” and last word “butter” can give you a big clue as to what this ingredient is. Yes, Theobroma cacao is the Latin name for what we commonly call “coco” or “chocolate”, or more specifically the plant from which those substances are derived. Note that the Latin names don’t end in the common Latin endings as this is one of those exceptions. Either way this is a great plant ingredient to make up your natural personal care product.
The third ingredient — CARBOMER 940 — is made up of one word and a number, which gives you a quick clue that this is a chemical and not a plant ingredient. As it goes with such ingredients, unless we learn what they are, we have no way of knowing how safe or dangerous they may be.
The fourth ingredient — GLYCERIN — is one word and a common chemical many of us may already be familiar with. You can read the following linked article to learn more about glycerin and what it is, as it is a very common personal care product.
The fifth ingredient — DMDM HYDANTOIN — contains two words but the first is an acronym, and plant names do not go by acronyms. Perhaps by now you can also tell that it does not resemble the Latin format of plant names and quickly deduce that it is some kind of a synthetic chemical. As a practical tip, DMDM HYDANTOIN/#.WbllONOGORs) is one of those ingredients that we really want to avoid in our personal care products.
The sixth ingredient — GREEN TEA EXTRACT — is easily recognized and understood as a natural, plant ingredient.
The seventh ingredient — CUCUMIS SATIVUS — contains two words and both have typical Latin endings, so it is to recognize this one as a plant ingredient, which actually refers to a cucumber.
The eighth ingredient — TOCOPHEROL ACETATE — also contains two words, but these do have the common Latin endings. They may be an exception, but as you examine them further, notice the English-sounding words used, which leads us to know that this is some kind of synthetic chemical ingredient. Although this ingredient has a connection to vitamin E, the highly modified tocopherol acetate version has various safety concerns.
Top 10 Harmful Ingredients in Personal Care Products to Avoid
Now, let’s look at the worst culprits. The following is a list of chemicals that should be avoided, as they each carry major health risks. If you see any of these in your personal care product and you are serious about protecting your health and reducing toxicity in your body, you should not buy or use such products, no matter what the front label says or which company it comes from. You can click on any of the ingredients to learn more about the product from the Skin Deep Cosmetic Database.
Parabens (any chemical name that ends with the word paraben, like propylparaben)
Fragrance/Parfum (phthalates)
Sodium laureth sulfate or lauryl sulfate (SLS)
Propylene Glycol (PPG) or Polyethylene Glycol (PEG, like PEG-4 Laurate)
DEA (all ingredients with DEA after the first word, like cocamide DEA)
Benzyl Alcohol or Denatured Alcohol
Oxybenzone or PABA
Aluminum ingredients (like Aluminum Zirconium Tetrachlorohydrex PEG)
Triclosan
Petroleum distillates including Petrolatum, Mineral Oil, Liquid Paraffin
The Natural Personal Care Solution
So what can each of us do? Quite a lot in fact. We are more empowered than we think; we just have to exercise our power.
First off, start reading all your personal care product ingredients. This is a must today.
Now you may be thinking, “why would I waste my time reading those ingredients, if I don’t even understand which ones are okay and which ones are harmful?” That is a great point, and the solution to this is three-fold.
Get to know the 10 most common ingredients above and start by ruling out any product(s) containing them. You can write them down on a small wallet card and carry them around until they become second nature.
and/or
Immediately switch to more natural options (they may not be perfect, but better than the typical commercial brands).
and/or
Use only products with ingredient lists you can recognize and know what they are, like real plant names. This includes highly natural products only.
Secondly, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of reducing the number of personal care products you use. We simply do not need even half the stuff we use or think we need. Clever marketing and advertising make us think we do, but most of these products are a waste of our money and cause more health and environmental harm than any benefit they provide.
When I chose to become aware of the toxicity as well as the unreliable data when it comes to the ingredients in personal care products, I took a serious look at what I really needed and what I didn’t, doing a serious elimination. First went all perfume, followed by body washes, body sprays, lipsticks, and other make-up, all hair products aside from shampoo and anti-perspirants, just to name the main items. The result is that I feel better than ever, not weighed down by chemicals all over my body and artificial scents. I find a simple, natural soap, toothpaste, shampoo, some cream or oil moisturizer, and some eye makeup is more than enough to satisfy both my personal hygiene and physical appearance.
How To Choose A Natural Personal Care Company?
As I mentioned above, moving from the typical commercial brands to natural companies is a good step in minimizing the chemical risk. However, due to the fact that our world works as it does, where profit and greed come before human health, even natural-sounding or looking personal care products today are not exactly what they seem.
So, can we trust any companies or products? First the bad news, then the good news. The bad news is that unless one works at one of these companies directly in the lab where products are made or makes the products themselves, we will never know with 100% certainty what really went into the product. The truth is that even when the ingredients on the bottle don’t sound harmful, the extraction or creation process of those ingredients may have used environmentally or health-toxic chemicals, resulting in tainted ingredients with things that most makers of the products do not even know.
Labeling laws exist, and companies each day find ways to work around the system in how they name things, what they add, or don’t add, report, etc. Ultimately, we have to understand that anything bottled and heavily processed is not natural, no matter what the front label says. The same goes for food.
We therefore cannot simply rely on words like “organic”, “natural” or “herbal”—again, always read all your ingredients. Words like this may simply make the products sound much better than they are, giving us a false sense of their safety. The ingredient label is the only place you learn about what the product is really all about.
The good news is that there are companies that are more trustworthy and that really are trying to make a difference and stand out from the crowd. And no, these are not usually the products you think of, like the ones from high-end department stores with hefty price tags. There, you are basically paying for expensive chemicals. Sometimes the simplest items offer the most benefit. Start wherever you can to improve your personal care items and decrease the amount of products you use and the amount of chemicals that you put on your body.
Conclusion
To conclude and summarize this tutorial, here are some final tips to pick the best, most natural, and least harmful personal care products:
- Aim to pick products with ingredient lists that are as full as possible of pure plant ingredients.
- Look for products that contain the plant names closer to the top, not bottom, of the ingredient list, as this means that the product is made more of them. (Ingredients are listed in descending order of predominance, in their concentration by weight.)
- Avoid products that have only a few plant names mixed in with many chemical/synthetic names. Usually, these products will make all sorts of claims on the front label that try to make the product sound nice and natural, when in reality it very much isn’t.
- Avoid products that have many plant names mixed in with chemical/synthetic names. Having some good ingredients does not justify having harmful ingredients.
- Be wary of products that have unreasonably long ingredient lists of plant names; they may be trying to “pad” their lists with anything and everything in tiny amounts, but in the end, really give you little or no benefit from those plant ingredients.
- Finally, if in doubt, do a quick search for the ingredient word(s) in question. Yes, this will add a few minutes to your shopping trip, but it is very easy to do today with our widespread use of smartphones and Internet availability, and in the end, it ensures you make the best choices possible for your health and well-being.
Finally, make use of EWG’s Skin Deep Cosmetics Database. This database is extremely valuable to anyone who wants quick, credible, and comprehensive information on any ingredient found on personal care labels. The site is brought to you by the researchers at the Environmental Working Group, which is a trusted and valuable resource that works to educate and empower consumers. Their mission and vision are very similar to that of what Evolving Wellness stands for, which is “to use the power of information to protect human health and the environment”.
Skin Deep was launched in 2004 and is a non-profit, non-partisan organization. They have around 70, 000 products from over 2,000 brands and cover thousands of ingredients in their database. The rationale behind it is that governing bodies, like the FDA in the United States, do not require companies to test their products appropriately for safety. Hence, Skin Deep is testing, researching, and compiling the information for us.
It is by far the best and most comprehensive site when it comes to understanding your personal products quickly, and it features a handy mobile app as well. You can search by their categories: makeup, skin care, hair care, eye care, nail care, baby care, oral care, and fragrance, or search individual products or ingredients you are interested in. There is also
Such a resource is so valuable to our lives today because we have so many chemicals around us all the time, and we are not properly informed of their safety. Any concerns or warnings about a product’s potential danger often come much too late, after the product or ingredient has been on the market for years and decades, and has impacted millions of people’s health. Therefore, I encourage each person who is interested in optimal health and wellbeing to take their health into their own hands. It is only through personal accountability and responsibility that we can truly be in charge of our health and make the best choices for us. And thanks to a resource like this from the EWG, it puts the power and control back into our hands as consumers. We always have a choice as to the products we choose and with Skin Deep you can be more confident about your choices.
To learn more and check the safety of your personal care products, visit and explore Skin Deep to benefit from its comprehensive database and learn about the products you are choosing and using.
Further Resources
Here are some resources that can make your life easier and quickly tell you about the safety or toxicity of the personal care product or company you may be interested in:
Made Safe — Certifies products made with safe ingredients.
Think Dirty App — A mobile app to help consumers choose the safest products.
Safe Cosmetics — Campaign for safe cosmetics.
Canada’s Environmental Defence Beautiful Pledge — A directory of manufacturers that have taken the pledge and do not contain the toxic ten ingredients.