The Green Beauty Guide: Your Essential Resource to Organic and Natural Skin Care, Hair Care, Makeup, and Fragrances (8 page)

Allergies:When Pink Is Not Pretty

Although experts say that only one in ten people has ever developed an allergy to a cosmetic product, I have yet to meet a woman whose skin would happily accept anything applied to it. Most of us have experienced a pink spot or an itch after using a new foundation or a facial treatment. For most of us, something as minor as itching is not a reason to panic.

Contact dermatitis is the most common skin disorder. It can be an irritant reaction (most commonly caused by irritating substances) or allergic reaction (caused by allergens, less common but more severe). Irritant contact dermatitis happens when harsh chemicals directly injure the outer layer of epidermis and irritate the skin. Allergic contact dermatitis occurs when the immune system reacts against a specific chemical that it considers foreign and harmful. While irritant dermatitis flares up almost immediately, an allergic reaction can develop even after you have used a cosmetic product for some time. Lips, eyes, ears, neck, and hands are the most common sites for cosmetic allergies. Symptoms of cosmetic allergy include itchiness, redness, swelling, mild fever, and blistering—definitely not pretty!

It may take a while to figure out what causes the allergy. You use about a dozen products on a daily basis, among them makeup, moisturizers, cleanser, toner, sunscreen, and antiaging serum. How do you go about finding the cause of the problem? While strong irritants such as fragrances cause a reaction within seconds, weaker irritants such as preservatives may take up to ten days to trigger an allergic response.

Some cosmetics are labeled “allergy-tested” or “hypoallergenic,” but do not let this fool you. “Hypoallergenic” means that the manufacturer thinks the product is less likely to cause an allergic reaction. To justify this claim, some companies simply do not include fragrances or pack the lotion with fewer preservatives. The claim “dermatologist-tested” on cosmetic products only means that a skin doctor has checked the ingredient list to see if the product will generally cause allergenic problems. Other label claims that are meaningless include “sensitivity-tested” and “nonirritating.” Still, you have a slightly less chance of developing an irritation when you use these products than those with a full-strength fragrance and preservatives occupying the whole ingredients list.

Sometimes you may develop a reaction to a specific ingredient that haunts you even if you stop using a suspected product and buy a similar one from another brand. You may even show symptoms of skin allergy to a product you have used for years. This happens because of a well-known synergism effect: two chemicals are working together to produce a stronger effect than they normally would when used separately. In addition, the chemical balance of the human body constantly changes. Our skin starts to produce more oil or loses water; our blood becomes more or less acidic; we develop invisible skin conditions that make our skin react in a different way to a chemical that was once safe and gentle.

“I am not allergic to synthetic chemicals because I am unhealthy,” said Aubrey Hampton, creator of Aubrey Organics, in his book
Natural Organic
Skin and Hair Care
. “I am allergic to synthetic chemicals because I am healthy. Your body is natural, and if your immune system is doing a good job, it will attempt to reject chemical allergens” (Organica Press, 1987).

Synthetic Fragrances: I Smell Danger

What is the first thing you do when you try a new moisturizer or lipstick? You smear it on the top of your hand and then you smell it. At this moment, you are not much different from a glue sniffer: substances that make cosmetics smell attractive are very similar to those that send addicts on their chemical trips.

It seems to be vitally important for us to use cosmetic products that smell nice, and this is quite understandable: beauty products make us look and feel better. Even people who admit to having sensitive skin would choose a lotion that had a barely noticeable scent over a completely unscented formulation that smelled like beeswax, green tea, and sunflower oil combined, no matter how beneficial these substances were for human skin.

When we smell an odor, a complex process begins in the brain. The Roman philosopher Lucretius said that different odors are created by molecules of various shapes and sizes. As we inhale fragrance molecules, they trigger a complex chain of reactions. There are many theories about how our nose decodes scents, and there is no theory that explains olfactory perception completely. While the human tongue can distinguish only five distinct tastes, the nose can recognize hundreds of substances, even in microscopic quantities.

So what is fragrance, and why is it so important to us? Odorant (fragrant) molecules dissolved in the air cause a certain sensation. This is a complex process: First, the molecule triggers receptors in the nose. After that, the limbic system, a part of the brain that governs emotional responses, decodes the information. That is why messages sent by odor molecules are powerful mood enhancers. It is no secret that certain odors can evoke distant memories, raise spirits, soothe jagged nerves, and even boost self-confidence.

For most people, the process of smelling gives little information about the ingredients of a particular scent. Most of us think,
What the heck, one
spray won’t hurt!
The same with food: we may diligently cook organic vegetable meals at home, but sometimes we need to “recharge the batteries” with a chocolate milkshake or a burger. In one meal, we consume a hefty dose of FD&C colors and preservatives. One slip, and a week’s worth of pure and clean eating goes down the drain!

This is when technology comes into play. While perfume makers hire famous “noses” to create perfume compositions, mass production of artificial fragrances relies heavily on smelling machines, or “electronic noses” that use chemical sensors to produce a fingerprint of any scent. It is now possible to dissect any natural scent and recreate it using synthetic fragrances. While advocates of synthetic skin care insist that everything comes from nature and nothing is created via alchemy, in the case of serious fragrance synthesizing, it’s simply not true. Today, the chemical industry can recreate any scent known to man, including dirt, earth, leather, snow, or freshly cut grass—and all of them can be surprisingly beautiful when mixed in the right proportions with floral and wood notes.

It is now possible to dissect any natural scent and recreate it using synthetic fragrances.

Every year, fragrance compositions are becoming more and more complicated. More and more products become heavily scented: laundry detergents, dryer sheets, cosmetics, stationery, candles, and pet products come in a variety of “naturally inspired scents.” Even baby toys are now infused with lavender and vanilla. To meet these needs, hundreds of new fragrant chemicals are being developed. Of the more than 5,000 materials currently available for use in fragrances, only 1,300 or so were tested for safety. Many of them are known fragrance sensitizers that have to be used in microscopic doses, if at all. Bear in mind, these synthetic fragrance molecules are programmed to turn on switches in our brains! Scientists believe that the ubiquitous nature of synthetic fragrance in modern society, coupled with the growing number of fragrance products for children and men, likely contributes to the sharp increase in allergies and respiratory illnesses.

Smart manufacturers rarely disclose the full list of ingredients that go into a fragrant composition. Fragrance formulas are considered trade secrets, and manufacturers do not have to tell anyone, including health authorities, what is in those formulas. However, many manufacturers attempt to list at least some ingredients. For example, a full list of ingredients of the average musk body mist reads as a huge list of synthetic and organic fragrance ingredients plus a “secret” fragrance, which most likely contains synthetic musk that has strong potential for triggering adverse effects in sensitive people.

There are plenty of organically derived fragrance ingredients used to enhance and enrich existing trademark compositions. All of the following naturally occurring fragrance ingredients are capable of causing allergic dermatitis and rhinitis: citronellol (found in citronella essential oil), linalool (a floral, slightly spicy odor chemical found in many plants, including mint, scented herbs, and even birch), geraniol (a fragrant component occurring in geranium, lemon, and many other essential oils), farnesol (found in citronella, neroli, cyclamen, lemongrass, tuberose, rose, balsam, and tolu), cinnamal (a flavor component in the essential oil of cinnamon), and eugenol (extracted from spices such as clove oil, nutmeg, cinnamon, and bay leaf).