Parabens

"Paraben-free" health and beauty products are popping up all over the place. This raises the natural question, what are parabens? And why are they creating products with or without them? What kinds of concerns are there in using products that contain parabens?

Parabens are a preservative; an ester, which is a compound of alcohol and acid (in the case of parabens, p-hydroxybenzoic acid). They are used to preserve health and beauty products. The FDA does not regulate cosmetic ingredients as it does with medications and foods. The only safeguards are that companies can not mislabel their products, sell contaminated products, or sell products which have decomposed/spoiled. Thus, products are preserved to protect their shelf life.

One of the main concerns with parabens is that they are a xenoestrogen. This means that when they come in contact with your cells, they fit into little estrogen shaped receptor sites. Your cells then signal via neurotransmitters that they have received "estrogen". There are concerns that this could affect estrogen production or other parts of the endocrine system. Also, in laboratory studies, parabens have been shown to affect sperm count. Lastly, parabens have been found in cancerous breast tissue; this is obviously a huge red flag. (One disclaimer to that finding is that they did not study non-cancerous breast tissue to see if parabens are also present there). Only very small amounts of parabens are supposedly present in our health and beauty products. It is thought that this is a protective factor and this is one reason that the FDA has not banned the use of parabens. How this is regulated/tracked, I don't know, considering they are still not regulating cosmetic ingredients. 


Bottom line: while there is not any hard, conclusive evidence that parabens are detrimental, there are studies showing some possible negative effects. It seems that it would be prudent to try to avoid them. This is especially true because of the abundance of paraben-free products. Read labels and avoid anything containing methylparaben, ethylparaben, isobutylparaben, butylparaben, and benzylparaben. 
Some paraben-free examples that I've found: St. Ive's Body Wash- inexpensive and easy to find, Burt's Bee's, Bare Escentuals, Sephora-approved products, Avalon Organics, Tom's of Maine, Method soaps, etc... There is a ton of stuff out there- you just have to be aware of what you're buying. I recently switched to Burt's Bee's facewash- same price as my old stuff and missing all the yucky chemicals. I love it!


* This article is focusing on parabens. There are several other concerning ingredients in beauty products which will be featured in later articles. Just wanted to let you know. *