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Petrochemicals in healthcare and cosmetics
Are petrochemicals toxic in cosmetics
By Dene Godfrey
It is all too common to see claims on cosmetics and
websites that the products are “free from” certain
substances. There is a much debate as to the
acceptability of this prac tice and certain countries,
such as France, South Africa and Canada,
ban companies from making such claims, either
by regulation or industry code of practice. Indeed,
the forthcoming revision of EU cosmetics legis lation,
the Cosmetics Regulation (EC) No. 1223/2009,
due to be enacted mid-2013 will make it illegal to
make such claims under most circumstances.
These days, it is virtually impossible to see the
word “petrochemical” without it being associated
with the word “free” or “does not contain” or a
negative adjective such as “toxic”. Yet products
containing oil or petrochemicals, which come
from oil, are not necessarily toxic or harmful.
Oil itself is totally natural in origin. Synthetic
chemicals produced from oil are not natural,
although many may be described as “natureidentical”,
however this does not mean that petrochemicals
used for cosmetics should all be classified
as “toxic”. The fact that a chemical has been
derived from oil/petroleum in no way deter mines
the toxicity of the chemical. The toxicity of any
substance, including petro chemicals used in
cosmetics, is not related to its origin nor to the
origin of its precursors.
While there are environmental issues surrounding
the exploration, extraction and refining of oil,
the singling out of the cosmetics industry for
using “toxic” petrochemicals is not accurate. With
less than 0.1% of total oil production used to
provide ingredients for cosmetics, sustainability is
not a major concern. Many products which claim
to be “petrochemical-free” contain sodium benzoate
and/or potassium sorbate which are both
petrochemicals, albeit ones that exist in nature.
These ingredients require a multi-stage synthesis
with many petrochemicals involved along the
way, but this does not make them any less safe.
A common claim for cosmetics is that they are
“all-natural” or “100% natural”. However, this claim
needs to be closely examined. “Natural” can also
be confused with “organic”. Only two questions
need to be asked to determine of a substance is
“natural”. Does the substance exist in nature Is
the substance extracted from nature with any
chemical modification If the substance does not
exist in nature, it cannot be described as “natural”
even if natural substances have been used
exclusively in its manufacture. This can only be
described as “nature-derived”.
However, taking the “nature-derived” definition
to its logical conclusion, the only question is to
how many stages of processing has the substance
been exposed. This introduces the concept of “degrees
of processing”. Given that so few cosmetics
ingredients are truly natural, how many degrees
of processing are acceptable to keep the ingredient
as close to nature as possible This is where the discussion
becomes subjective rather than scientific.
Furthermore, can “nature-identical” substances
be described as “100% natural” Part of the consider
ation here should be the source of raw materi als
used to manufacture “nature-identical” products.
The two most common “nature-identical” ingre dients
are sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate
– as stated earlier, these are both petrochemicals.
There is no natural source for these ingredients and
all usage in cosmetics is from synthetic production.
Many products which claim to be “all-natural”
use petrochemicals but this does not mean they
are unsafe.
Dene Godfrey, a scientist, council member and
past president of the UK Society of Cosmetic
Scientists, has written on the use of petrochemicals
in the cosmetics industry and the safety issues. This
is an edited version of his article, Petrochemicals:
Confusion and Hypocrisy and 100% Natural
Almost 100% Certainly Not, first published on
www.personalcaretruth.com
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