The high price of beauty

UNDATED (WPRI) - Are girls increasing their risk of breast cancer by wearing blush, or their chances of reproductive abnormalities by applying lip gloss? It sounds crazy, but critics of the cosmetic industry say the concern is in the ingredients.

And it's not just environmental health groups sounding the alarm. Right now, new legislation is being introduced to close what legislators call "major loopholes" in a federal law. The bill's sponsors say the current law leaves Americans unknowingly exposed to potentially harmful mystery ingredients. That's why Eyewitness News is taking a hard look at the debate over whether cosmetics are truly hazardous to your health, especially for teenage girls.

• Interactive: Makeup Safety

Young girls are inundated with images of fresh faces, luscious lips and long lashes so tantalizing that any young girl would want to put fruit spritzers on her lips. Girls like 15-year-old Ally Stadolnick and 13-year-old Lindsay Sheehan only care about the results.

Lindsay says, "It just makes me feel prettier about myself, gives me self confidence."

Most young girls never think about looking at the long list of ingredients on their bottles of foundation or blush, but maybe they should.

Laura Sheehan, Lindsay's mother, say "You need a pharmacy degree in order to decipher exactly which ingredients and what's safe and what isn't safe that they're putting in the makeup for your child."

Some legislators want to know too. Representative Ed Markey from Massachusetts is introducing "The Safe Cosmetics Act." He says, "From lipstick to lotion, our medicine cabinets are filled with personal care products that may contain potentially dangerous chemicals."

But whether they actually cause cancer or other serious health effects has sparked a huge debate across the cosmetic counter, especially now that more and more girls are using them.

• FDA Makeup Safety Quiz

Mia Davis from the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics says, "We're not saying that using a lipstick or blush is going to give you cancer, certainly not. But what we are saying is that there are chemicals linked to cancer in these products and on average, teenage girls in this country are using about 17 products a day."

The FDA says except for color additives and those ingredients which are prohibited from being used in cosmetics, "A manufacturer may use any ingredient in the formulation of a cosmetic provided that the ingredient is safe."

You may be surprised to know that the current Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act does not authorize the FDA to approve cosmetic ingredients. So if the FDA isn't responsible for substantiating the safety of cosmetics, who is? According to the FDA, the answer is the cosmetic companies themselves.

"I disagree that this is the fox guarding the hen house," says Dr. John Bailey, Chief Scientist for the Cosmetic Industry. He vehemently disagrees that cosmetics are some of the least regulated consumer products on the market.

• Cosmetic Industry Side

Bailey says, "The FDA has considerable authority to address any safety issue that may come up, and they can remove any products from the market."

Cosmetic manufacturers say each product contains only a small amount of any given chemical. But groups like the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics say it's the chronic exposure from multiple products, especially during sensitive developmental years, that is the biggest concern.

Mia Davis from the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics says, "Those little bits add up over time and the chemicals act different together in bottles or in combination... it's kind of like a chemical cocktail that we're exposed to just through chemicals alone."

So what now? If the bill passes, it would give the FDA the ability to protect consumers from what lawmakers call potentially harmful products. And it would require the government, not just the cosmetic industry, to conduct annual testing of cosmetics for pathogens or contaminants.

LINKS:

FDA Makeup Safety Quiz

Safe Cosmetics Act

Cosmetic Industry Side

Cosmetic Critics Side or www.ewg.org

FDA