Harmful Beauty Preparations by L. A. HANSEN

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 23, 1916

Harmful Beauty Preparations

By L. A. HANSEN

L. A. HANSEN

The harmful effects of the ordinary constituents of some widely used cosmetics is the basis of a report given in Reprint 305 of the Public Health Reports. This reprint states that “of the many and varied abuses of drug products, there is none in which fraud, deception, and a wanton disregard for human health and even life are so clearly evidenced as in connection with the manufacture, sale, and use of so-called cosmetics.”

“While no one can deny that emollient, irritant, and even caustic drugs, applied as cosmetics, have a legitimate and an important field of usefulness, the abuse of these same drugs, because of the misleading claims made in connection with many of the so-called cosmetics of a proprietary nature, involves a menace that should be recognized and guarded against.”

A conservative estimate places the cost of cosmetic preparations to the consumer, in this country, in excess of fifty million dollars annually. At even this large figure, the financial feature is not the most serious.

As an illustration of the fraudulent practices in this connection, reference is made to recent reports of chemists in charge of State laboratories. The Report of the Indiana State Board of Health (1912-1914) shows that eighty-one samples of preparations used as hair tonics, skin foods, cold creams, mouth washes, and lotions of varying character, were examined. Thirty of the samples were classed as illegal. Seven contained methyl, or wood alcohol.

The proceedings of the Iowa Pharmacy Association (1914) reports twenty out of sixty-six toilet preparations as containing methyl alcohol. Among these were the following: Egg shampoo, hair tonics, bay rum, witch hazel, toilet waters, Florida water, and perfume.

The dangerous character of wood alcohol has been well established. A recent editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association asserts that nearly a thousand cases of poisoning attributed to wood alcohol have been reported in medical literature since 1893.

Wood alcohol is, however, but one of the many poisonous drugs found in so-called beauty preparations. The beauty washes and enamels are found to contain some dangerously potent drugs, including flake white, or lead carbonate; diachylon, or lead plaster; corrosive sublimate, or mercuric chloride; calomel, or mercurous chloride; white precipitate, or ammoniated mercury; pearl white, or bismuth subnitrate; zinc white, or zinc oxide; Chinese white, or commercial zinc oxide; zinc soap, or zinc stearate.

The first in the list, the ordinary white lead of commerce, is also known under a number of other names. It is generally recognized as the most common cause of industrial lead poisoning, the prevention of which is attracting the attention of scientists.

The poisonous properties of certain metals and their salts are well recognized, as is also their ready absorption by the skin. That women are more subject to lead poisoning than men is also recognized, and is thought to be due to the harmful effects of lead upon the blood and blood-making organs of the body, and the greater dependence of women on a normal blood supply. For this reason, no doubt, young women are more susceptible to lead poisoning than are those more advanced in years.

Although considerable study has been given the subject of metal poisoning, knowledge of the subject is incomplete as applying to ultimate effects. It is thought by some authorities that lead poisoning from the use of cosmetics may be the cause of many cases of general nervous debility, some of insanity, and perhaps some of paralysis. Many of the vague and little-understood abdominal pains of women are said to be due to this cause. The belief is expressed that out of the thousands of girls who use preparations containing lead there must be many cases in which the untoward effects are not readily recognized as being due to lead poisoning, and which are consequently overlooked.

The serious toxic effects of the several salts of mercury are marked, among them being salivation, stomatitis, diarrhea, and a disturbance of the central nervous system. Mercuric chloride, or corrosive sublimate, is often found in moth and freckle ointments. It is an efficient local irritant, and will remove moths and freckles by destroying the outer layers of the skin. It is, however, a systemic poison that may be absorbed through the unbroken skin with serious poisonous effects.

So with a number of other ingredients of cosmetics, they have properties very effective for doing harm when applied as directed. The labels under which they are sold do not indicate them as dangerous drugs, but call them by names that are attractive to the beauty seeker.

Needless to say, it is important that care be exercised in the purchase and use of preparations for the hair and skin, to avoid those that do not give positive proof of being harmless. The question of what is really beneficial requires still more thought.