JaneUK asks…Please can you give some advice regarding Chromium Oxide Greens? I would like to try Jane Iredale’s PurePressed Base Foundation and Enlighten Concealer, both of which I see may contain Chromium Oxide Greens. Having done a little limited research, it appears that Chromium Oxide Greens are a known teratogen and carcinogen and aren’t allowed to be included in cosmetic products to be used on the lips, only ones for the face and eye area (yet the eyes and nose have mucous membranes?!). I am currently breastfeeding and want to reduce the risk of using any products that may be harmful to my son.
Do the levels of Chromium Oxide Greens used in these Jane Iredale products (or any other cosmetics products for that matter) pose significant health implications? Are they really teratogenic and carcinogenic? If so, surely there would be packaging warnings for pregnant women? Should I avoid these products because they contain Chromium Oxide Greens?
The Right Brain responds:
As Savvy SarahF pointed out in our Forum, the FDA has determined that Chromium Oxides are safe for external use. And by external we mean “not likely to enter your body.” Products like lipsticks and glosses that are used on the lips are much more likely to be absorbed than eyeshadows or blushes. And unless you’re putting blush up your nose, there’s little contact with the mucous membranes in the nasal cavity. So as long as you’re using these products as they’re directed there should be little danger. Furthermore, as this link form the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), there is no evidence that this colorant poses a cancer or teratogenic danger.
However, if you’re worried that some of these colorants might accidentally get into your baby’s mouth while you’re kissing and snuggling, that’s another story. In that case you may be better off not wearing cosmetics during your quality baby time.
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Even if you were to wear lip gloss and accidentially lick your lips, the amount secreted in breastmilk in close to NIL.
In fact it’s even safe to take ibuprofen while breastfeeding. [As per my ped]
You really don’t need to worry too much about make-up, and focus more on mercury in tuna fish! [once every 10 weeks].
I wanted to add that you might be scared if you find one study where large amounts of a substance caused mutations in, say, fungi. Please remember that many of the drugs we take orally–and that have been shown to be safe for human use–had some such effect in one part of their pre-clinical testing. If you give massive amounts of aspirin, claritin or caffeine to fungi, for all we know (and I haven’t looked up the studies on this) they might mutate. It’s important look at the big picture rather than one study. To my understanding, if most of the tests (and these are often tests that really push the limits by using massive doses) show that something doesn’t cause mutations, you’d conclude it isn’t a strong mutagen.
Hi,
I wonder if the beauty brains could do a response to the widespread media released cancer boosting stance on suncreen. Thanks
http://www.aolnews.com/health/article/study-many-sunscreens-may-be-accelerating-cancer/19488158
Steph, the report was published by the EWG, an organization better known for operating the skin deep website, which is fraught with overblown information that tends to take 1 tiny study that makes an ingredient look bad and ignore dozens of others that deem it perfectly safe, in order to “shock” it’s audience and win their trust. The EWG is run by lawyers and not scientists, even those that may have good intentions still don’t know how to properly evaluate scientific abstracts or many abstracts at once. But their intentions are seriously suspect and at the very least, they have a very biased, one sided view on cosmetic products overall.
What it all amounts to is that we should all view anything publicized by the EWG with a very skeptical eye.
Sorry, I’m hooked on this topic (this is why people who know me never ask me to help them look for something, I won’t stop until I find it). Look what I found on a CDC site…”Chromium(III) is an essential nutrient that helps the body use sugar, protein, and fat.” http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts7.html Again, from what I can tell, chromium oxide greens = chromium (III). I guess we found out what happens if you ingest minute amounts by accident…