This month a Senate Committee announced a plan to consider an overhaul of cosmetics regulations, with hair loss at the heart of many complaints.
Contaminated Cosmetics
A recent hike in the number of product recalls government warnings and contaminated products could lead to Congress looking at giving US cosmetics law a makeover. That is the view of the well respected US based Environment Working Group (EWG). They go on to list a frightening array of products that have stepped over one line or another and caused damage, sometimes serious and permanent, to users. What caught our eye were just how many of these products resulted in hair loss. Some were obviously always going to, celebrity promoted shampoo that makes your hair fall out is just one example. Hair relaxers that burn the scalp would be another. Hair spray containing banned chemicals yet another. While these are all terrible we understand that others in the list, while not directly causing the hair loss will have been an underlying cause. Mercury in skin whitening cream would be an example, clearly it is a banned ingredient yet one that finds it’s way through careless importation and a lack of scrutiny onto shop shelves.
Contamination, whether through banned ingredients or those that were never intended to be in the product in the first place, bacteria for example, has been seen in everything from eye shadow to face powders and lotions. The resultant stress on your immune system can easily lead to a systemic response that will regularly see hair loss as one of the symptoms.
Senate Committee
The EWG website informs us that two Senators have been pushing this agenda since 2015. The bi partisan pair of Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, and Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, have been asking for the FDA to be given the power to review dangerous chemicals in cosmetics. Their bill is supported by public health groups and cosmetics companies of all sizes.
HIS Hair Clinic
Congratulations to Feinstein and Collins on achieving their aim and forcing the Senate review, it took three years – and you don’t have to think long about the last three years to realise it must have taken a determined campaign to get anything through. Let’s hope the review leads to new legislation around cosmetics that affords consumers some security against unscrupulous manufacturers, importers and traders. You can read EWG’s uncompromising view on the “broken” cosmetics law by clicking here.
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