Do you know what’s in your makeup? Me neither! 

Over the past decade, I have watched as “clean beauty” has grown from a niche category of products to a movement. Celebrities like Jessica Alba, Issa Rae, and Michelle Pfeiffer, and last year’s HBO docuseries “Pretty Ugly,” narrated by Keke Palmer, have helped to make the clean beauty movement mainstream. It’s becoming increasingly clear – the clean beauty movement is here to stay. Today’s consumers, especially Gen Zers, have become more and more aware of what it means for a product to be truly “clean,” and are expecting companies to meet their rising expectations.  

Thanks to the demand of young people and advocates, Congress finally updated our nation’s outdated cosmetic safety laws last year — after more than 80 years of inaction. When President Biden signed the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act (MoCRA) into law on Dec. 29, 2022, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally got the power it needed to regulate the more than $100 billion beauty and personal care product industry. Most importantly, the law gave the FDA authority to recall beauty and personal care products that are harming human health.  

While MoCRA was an important first step, our work is not done. We must build on the momentum and continue to strengthen our nation’s cosmetic safety laws by banning the most toxic chemicals found in personal care products, closing the fragrance and flavor loophole, and protecting communities that are most vulnerable to unsafe chemicals hiding in their beauty and personal care products. 

We all deserve safe beauty and personal care products 

Today, it is estimated that there are more than 10,000 chemicals used to make beauty and personal care products. On average, men and women use six to 12 personal care products a day, exposing themselves to hundreds of unique chemicals daily. A 2019 study found that teen girls use an average of 14 products a day. Their widespread use makes it especially unsettling that the FDA does not conduct pre-market safety reviews of personal care products before they go to market. As beauty products continue to be aggressively marketed to young people in order to cultivate brand loyalty as early as possible, youth should be able to have the peace of mind that there are no toxic chemicals hiding in their products without their knowledge or consent. More and more science is showing beauty and personal care products contain chemicals linked to a large number of health concerns ranging from hormone disruption and infertility, to respiratory harm, cancer, and more. Young people should not have to gamble with their future health by the consumer choices they are making today.  

As of January 2022, the EU law bans 1693 chemicals. In comparison, the U.S. FDA has only banned or restricted 11 chemicals from cosmetics. When it comes to what is in our products, consumers want and need to know exactly what ingredients are present in the products they are covering their bodies with. However, because of trade secret laws, companies can hide dozens — even hundreds — of chemicals used to make their products smell or taste good, under the single ingredient “fragrance” or “flavor.” While the FDA will now require companies to tell them what fragrance ingredients are present in the products they make and sell, the law did not close the fragrance labeling loophole. This loophole means that consumers could be exposed to dozens — even hundreds — of toxic fragrance chemicals or allergens in their scented beauty and personal care products. 

The good news is that a growing consumer-right-to-know movement is demanding ingredient transparency. And while some large multinational companies have already started to voluntarily disclose fragrance and flavor ingredients in their products at or above 100 parts per million — equivalent to a minute in two years — this is not enough. Just like some states have banned the worst of the worst chemicals from cosmetics, some have also taken the issue of fragrance ingredient disclosure into their own hands. In 2020, California passed a state law requiring companies to publicly disclose all fragrance and flavor chemicals that have been identified as toxic by state, federal and international regulatory and scientific bodies.   

Women and girls of color are even more at risk 
Another critically important gap in cosmetic safety that we still have not addressed is cosmetic safety protections for vulnerable communities – particularly communities of color and professional hair and nail salon workers. In their personal lives, women of color suffer from a higher level of exposure to unsafe chemicals because of the beauty products aggressively marketed to them – ranging from hair relaxers and straighteners to skin lighteners, and more. A 2018 study released by the Breast Cancer Prevention Partners found that out of 32 personal care and cleaning products it tested, the most toxic product was a shampoo called “Just for Me” marketed to young Black girls. It contained 24 carcinogens, hormone disruptors, and other toxicants, 17 of which were fragrance ingredients that did not even appear on the label. Toxic exposure is also of particular concern to Black women because they spend $7.5 billion a year on beauty products and purchase nine times as many hair care products as their white counterparts. This is a problem because Black women already face many health disparities, including the highest breast cancer mortality rate of any U.S. racial or ethnic group.  

We Need Safer Beauty for All 

Without comprehensive, federal cosmetic safety protections, people still need to do the work to understand which ingredients are unsafe. Some apps have enabled consumers to more easily assess the safety of cosmetic ingredients, the onus should not be on the consumer. We all deserve a government that protects us from toxic chemicals in the beauty and personal care products we use every day. That is why I reintroduced my Safer Beauty bill package, made up of three bills that will close gaps in cosmetic safety that impact everyone, but particularly women of color. The Toxic-Free Beauty Act, co-authored with my colleague Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas), will ban 11 of the worst chemicals from beauty and personal care products; The Fragrance and Flavor Right to Know Act, co-authored by Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.), will require the full disclosure of fragrance, including their allergens, and flavor chemicals. The third bill, Cosmetic Safety for Communities of Color and Professional Salon Workers Act, co-authored by Rep. Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), will protect women of color and salon workers by funding research, green chemistry safer alternatives to the toxic chemicals found in these products, education and outreach, resource materials and National Center on Beauty Justice and Salon Worker Health and Safety.  

Conclusion  

What consumers expect is simple: the knowledge that the beauty and personal care products that they use daily are safe. The passage of the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulations Act was an important step. Now we must build on the momentum consumer demand created to get that law passed and ensure safer beauty for all.  

Jan Schakowsky is ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Innovation, data, and Commerce Subcommittee.