Both?

Bob Root, Keys Technologist

As a part of my ongoing series of looking at the Dirty Dozen Chemicals shown to provide elevated cancer rates in people and animals, in this article, I outline why we do not use parabens leaving the judgmental diagnosis to the NGO’s attacking them.  The Dirty Dozen Chemicals are a list of 12 developed originally by the Marin County Cancer Project which at the time, had the highest Cancer Rates in the US.  Followed by Search For The Cause and Teens Turning Green the list is now designated the Dirty Thirty.

So, are parabens good guys or bad guys?  Both it seems and there is a why we do not use them as well.

Below is a scavenged description of parabens from Wikipedia.    On the surface and from a chemical perspective they do their job.  Many chemists and companies support their use based on a belief of safety.  I believe that they are looking at the wrong reasons for safety.

Our society seems to primarily look at safety as, “will what we put on our skin hurt us directly?”  I believe that we should be looking at whether it hurts us based on contact and will it cause something else to hurt us because of it.

So first let’s try to understand what they are and why some manufacturers use them.  Here is that Wikipedia description

Paraben 2D Skeletal

effective preservatives in many types of formulas. These compounds, and their salts, are used primarily for their bactericidal and fungicidal properties. They can be found in shampoos, commercial moisturizers, shaving gels, personal lubricants, topical/parenteral pharmaceuticals, spray tanning solution and toothpaste. They are also used as food additives.

Their efficacy as preservatives, in combination with their low cost, their long history of safe use and the inefficacy of natural alternatives like grapefruit seed extract(GSE), probably explains why parabens are so commonplace. They are becoming increasingly controversial, however, and some organizations which adhere to the precautionary principle object to their everyday use. Read the rest of this entry »

Ingredients, Skin Deep Report  and Everything Else…

Musing from an interview with Bob Root, Keys Care CTO

Bob Root, Keys Chief Technologist Near Los Alamos National Labs

I recently took up Storm Chasing as a hobby… Just kidding although I feel like one of those guys chasing Tornado’s in the Midwest when it comes to the natural products industry.

I was recently on a conference call with various members of the Natural Products Manufacturers Association enraged about a change that the EWG had made in the rating of Vegetable Emulsifying Wax from a 1 to a 4.  The tone was angry because as Compact Signers, we were not given a why, who, what or a heads-up at all to the change.  As of the time of the call, no one knew why the ranking was changed, who provoked it or the reason for the change.  Normally, I would not address this here on our blog, but there has been so much uproar at the consumer level that our customer service, sales and marketing teams asked for some clarity.  The title of this article maybe should have been Williams Shakespeare’s,  ”Much Ado About Nothing!”

First, the process of developing products and the Skin Deep rating system could be a 400 page book.  I neither have the time or inspiration to write a book like that, so I will try to generalize some things and bring some of this into perspective.

The Skin Deep database is one of, if not, the best things that has ever happened for consumer safety regarding cosmetics.  Like anything, it must be broad and focused on its purpose.  Skin Deep is a database to help consumers understand the safety of products that they are using on themselves and their families.  It is not a database for manufacturers to use as a marketing tool.  Although it might seem that way to some, it is a tool for consumers as well as a tool for manufacturers to use in developing safer products.

Natural and organic are not features or benefits of products.  Some of us believe that it should be the basis of all that we make and consume. It should be the norm and not the niche exception that it is. Read the rest of this entry »

Click Here To View Keys Labels

We have always published our product labels on our website.  Admittedly they have been a little hard to find and took some work.  As a part of the evolution of our website and our dedication to simpler more informed content, we have created a page on our blog dedicated to our products from an informational standpoint.  The page on the main menu bars above and to the right show a new category called “Keys Products.”  As we add information, it will appear in this category and as a brief article like this one.

So, now all of our label art in flat pattern is available to be viewed by clicking this link or the label image herein.  You can also go to the category page and click the link there to see these labels.

You will also notice that we are beginning to add recycle symbols to our labels.  Many of our containers are made in the EU and do not have mold recycle marks.  These packages are fully recyclable.  We are adding the symbol to all of our labels as an assurance.  As we add the symbol, we will update the label art page above to reflect the changes.

EWG Report Cover

The EWG just released a report on Fragrances. Below is a part of the report and links to read the entire report.

What is important to understand is that these same secret ingredients are used in personal care and household products. That familiar brand fragrance of Tide, Dreft and dryer sheets come from fragrance developed in the same process as the cologne’s and perfumes listed in the EWG Report.

This report is not startling to us, but it will be to you. It is clear and concise as well as very easy to understand. Simply if it has a long lasting smell, it is a good chance that your products have some of these secret ingredients that are talked about in the report.

This morning our chief scientist, Bob Root, was a featured speaker on the industry call hosted by the Product Stewardship Institute.

Here is the Link to the EWG Not So Sexy fragrance report

Here is a link to the Not So Sexy Fragreance Report in PDF file format

EWG Report Excerp

A rose may be a rose. But that rose-like fragrance in your perfume may be something else entirely, concocted from any number of the fragrance industry’s 3,100 stock chemical ingredients, the blend of which is almost always kept hidden from the consumer.

Makers of popular perfumes, colognes and body sprays market their scents with terms like “floral,” “exotic” or “musky,” but they don’t disclose that many scents are actually a complex cocktail of natural essences and synthetic chemicals – often petrochemicals. Laboratory tests commissioned by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and analyzed by Environmental Working Group revealed 38 secret chemicals in 17 name brand fragrance products, topped by American Eagle Seventy Seven with 24, Chanel Coco with 18, and Britney Spears Curious and Giorgio Armani Acqua Di Gio with 17.

The average fragrance product tested contained 14 secret chemicals not listed on the label. Among them are chemicals associated with hormone disruption and allergic reactions, and many substances that have not been assessed for safety in personal care products.

Also in the ranks of undisclosed ingredients are chemicals with troubling hazardous properties or with a propensity to accumulate in human tissues. These include diethyl phthalate, a chemical found in 97 percent of Americans (Silva 2004) and linked to sperm damage in human epidemiological studies (Swan 2008), and musk ketone, a synthetic fragrance ingredient that concentrates in human fat tissue and breast milk (Hutter 2009; Reiner 2007).