LUIGI LO FORTI
H&PC today (TKS Publisher)

Abstract

Product safety seems to be quite an open debate still today, especially when it concerns health. Obviously enough, we do want the products to be 100% safe, yet we also want them to be 100% natural as well. The problem is natural is not always safe, sometimes it’s actually the opposite. So, quoting Giacomo Santus’s provocative question, “With or without: what is the safer option?”, (pag. 46), we would probably work out an answer consumers might not be happy to hear.

A SIMPLE ASSUMPTION
The plain truth out there is that any product containing water is, as a matter of fact, a potential incubator for fungi, bacteria, moulds. This is not an opinion or marketing manipulation, it’s a fact! Since cosmetics contain water, they are consequently exposed to potential contamination. Moreover, cosmetics are usually stored in bathrooms, that is a warm, humid environment, which is ideal for microbial growth. Leaving creams, foams and make up products without protection from contamination is out of the question, since this, rather ironically, would turn them into a 100% natural health hazard.So, apparently, nobody would oppose the use of biocidal substances – and, in fact, such substances have been used in cosmetics ever since. Then, in 2004, something happened…

War on parabens: a misdirected crusade?
The first hint of what has been happening in the last few years came out when a U.K. study found out there were traces of parabens in women with breast cancer (1). Even if that study did not show a proved correlation between parabens and cancer and did not examine paraben levels in non-tu ...