How Your Beauty Products Can Cause the Same Problems They’re Meant to Solve

The Hidden Dangers of “Shadow Ingredients”

Ingredients hidden by not commonly known names are in all kinds of beauty products, including the expensive brands. Even brands labeled “natural”, “nontoxic”, or “earth friendly“ can be unsafe and include ingredients like lead, mercury, formaldehyde, and many other harmful ingredients that are legally considered “natural” and can be hidden from you by using one of dozens of alternate names.

Several major retailers have labeled some of the products they sell as “Green”, or “Safe”, but upon investigation we found that means those products exclude only less than 100 of the over 1,400 ingredients banned in other parts of the world. Not much of a solution for this  important health safety problem.

We asked, a spokesperson for Achieve Beauty, to give us an example of how some brands hide dangerous ingredients.

“We have a comprehensive ingredient analysis service available online that translates every ingredient on a label into its commonly known name and provides you with the name of countries where that ingredient is banned or restricted, along with potential skin, hair or health problems it can cause.

This is so important, since even smart consumers don’t know all the different names for each ingredient, and most people are surprised to find out what’s in their products. Arsenic, for example, is labeled under several different names including Atomic Number 33, Fowler's Solution, Numéro Atomique 33, Solution de Fowler, and many others.”

She continued:

“We consulted with a person allergic to nickel. Her dermatologist gave her the name of 13 not commonly known names for nickel and told her to read the labels and avoid any of them.  We analyzed products she was using and found that one of the products contained one of the 23 alternate names for nickel (10 more names than her dermatologist gave her), and that ingredient was likely contributing to the breakouts she was experiencing.”

Even Safe Ingredients Can Become Dangerous

Combinations of safe ingredients in the same routine, even if in different products, can be taking an unseen, and creeping toll on your long-term physical and mental health. For example, Vitamin C is considered a health safe ingredient. Sodium benzoate is also considered safe. When these two ingredients are used during the same routine, they become a cancer-causing compound called benzene.

Why Some Products Suddenly Stop Working

Ever wondered how one of your skin or hair care products works at first, and then stops working for what seems to be no reason at all? The answer might have nothing to do with the product itself or its ingredients

The skin care specialists at Achieve Beauty tell us that certain ingredients in one product can cause another product’s ingredients not to work. For example, Retinol is an often used ingredient to treat acne, and vitamin C is often used to address pre-mature aging. Here’s the problem. If you add a Retinol product during the same routine where you are using vitamin C, they render one another ineffective.

At the same time, combinations of products with conflicting ingredients can cause dry skin, acne, dullness, wrinkles, and other problems. In other words, your combination of skin care products could be creating the very problems you’re trying to solve. Why else would a product work splendidly for a few weeks, only to stop working?

Think about how many complex chemicals are hiding in the handful of skin care, cosmetics and hair care products you use every day.

In the United States alone there are over 12,000 unique chemical ingredients being used in the manufacture of personal care products. A typical product will contain from 15–30 ingredients and the average woman uses between 8 and 15 beauty care products a day.

Even if you knew the name of every potentially harmful ingredient, or the dozens of alternate names each ingredient is called, you’d have to be a master chemist to understand how they all work together.

The Toxic Time Bomb is Already Ticking

What happens when the trace amounts of dangerous product ingredients build up in your system over time?

At first, your body’s organs (kidneys, liver, etc.) slowly flush these ingredients out of your body. However, many toxins accumulate over time and can build faster than your body can clear them out.

Imagine a bucket with a small crack in the bottom. You set it under a drip, and at first, the water drops slowly out. But as the drops continue, they start to build up because they can’t drip out of the bucket as quickly as they enter. Eventually, the bucket overflows, even though the water continues to drip out of the crack.

The more these toxins build up, the more of a toll they take on your health. At first, your energy level, mental focus, and short-term memory might just seem a little less sharp. Most of us blame this on age. But then you start getting sick a little more often. You have a few more aches and pains. It takes you longer to recover from illness, injury, or even a night of moderate drinking. At some point, your skin and hair might start to look less full and shiny.

Why Natural and Organic Products Aren’t The Answer

A recent study by the Organic Consumers Association found that 40% of all “natural” beauty products (tested in the study) contain dangerous carcinogenic (cancer causing) ingredients. Formaldehydes, lead, aluminum, mercury and many other harmful ingredients are considered natural, but you will see them called by unrecognizable names on labels for both natural and other products.

Many natural and organic products make claims about anti-aging, acne treatment, brightening, moisturizing, and other benefits, but don’t produce the results the product claims. If you’ve tried these products yourself (or know someone who has), you know how often they fail to live up to their promises.

So, why can’t you just bite the bullet and spend more money on expensive beauty products?

How Even Expensive Brands Failed The Toxicity Test

The FDA conducted a survey of heavy metals in cosmetics, and found that arsenic, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, lead, mercury, and nickel were present in unsafe amounts in both luxury and budget brands. Even worse, because higher priced products tend to have a longer ingredient list, there’s a greater chance for toxic ingredient contamination. And again, without proper ingredient analysis you would never know you’re using products that include these harmful ingredients.

Like most complex problems, this one can’t be solved by throwing money at it. On top of this, most people are too busy to make a part time job out of investigating the thousands of tricky ingredient names, and the impossibly complicated task of understanding how all these ingredients interact with one another.

If only you could be armed with the ingredient information you need, and also have a team of licensed skin estheticians, licensed hair cosmetologists, and Board-Certified Dermatologists ready to guide you through building and maintaining the safest and most effective routine. Thankfully, now you can.

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