Dear Paula,

I am growing increasingly upset over the products that you review poorly due to lack of chemical preservatives, specifically, the parabens! For goodness sake! Some of us actually go out of our way to purchase products without parabens because of their link to female cancers, among other things. Why are you so dead set against natural preservatives? Why can't you just review such products as they are: natural/whole/organic choices? There are plenty of safe/natural preservatives out there and you won't see them in super-sized packaging because I think that manufacturers and consumers alike are very well aware that they are not going to keep the product pathogen-free for countless years like paraben-filled products do.

Please don't continue to have consumers who choose products FREE of parabens question their ethics because of your "soap box" on the NEED for them. Chemical preservatives most certainly keep some pathogens at bay but they also are linked to many health problems. They cause years and years of chemical burdens on our body. You are so steadfast against fragrance and most essential oils yet you have no problems with parabens. Give me a break. Give organic products a chance! Go ahead and let us know if they have problematic oils and or irritating ingredients, but don't disregard it because it contains vitamin E, or whatever, as a preservative as opposed to the paraben group.

Give credit and time to companies that go the extra mile to keep their paraben-free products as safe as any other. How about Boscia? They stamp a date on their packaging. You have never reviewed them. What about Juice Beauty? They also freshness-date their products for safety/effectiveness. Their packaging is very stable, and the products are very small so that you don't have it forever, which poses a greater risk for bacteria growth.

I have been subscribing to Cosmetics Counter Update , and now Beautypedia, for seven years now, and I am growing very weary of the lack of respect, attention, and time you give to whole/natural/organic products. I don't consider Origins as part of that category (the only one that I can find on your list that might be considered "natural"). Lord knows, as long as I have read your reviews, Origins has no chance at a smiley face. Try giving truly natural products, like the brands mentioned above, a fighting chance.

It would be great to see you give credit to companies that are actually trying to do our bodies good by not burdening it with harmful chemicals. If I have read it once, I have read it a million times from you: the "harm" of parabens is far less than the risk of pathogens/bacteria growing in your products. That school of thought is so outdated! For those products whose ingredient lists are a mile long, paraben all you want. Who would want to use those products anyway? Purer products that don't require parabens, that have simple yet effective, AND, fewer ingredients.....those are the products you should be praising!

Karen, via email

Dear Karen,
Thank you for sharing your feedback with me. I appreciate this opportunity to go into detail about how I approach the subject of parabens as a preservative system. Before I discuss parabens (which, ironically, have a natural origin) I want to address your preference for natural preservatives. By those, I assume you are referring to ingredients such as hinokitol (derived from cedarwood oil), grapefruit seed extract, neem oil, and tea tree oil, among others. All of these natural ingredients have some amount of preservative ability, but there are roadblocks and considerations for their use. For example, hinokital has a strong odor that many consumers would find unappealing, as well as not being very water soluble (which limits its usage); grapefruit seed extract is ineffective unless it is preserved with parabens, which it commonly is (but they’re not listed on products because consumers want to think a grapefruit is keeping their moisturizer contaminant-free); neem oil has an off-putting brown color and weak anti-fungal activity, while tea tree isn’t soluble in water and also has weak activity against most pathogens. As for vitamin E (as tocopherol), it is not stable in the presence of light and its preservative ability is limited to antioxidant protection. What makes all natural preservatives ineffectual is the fact that their antibacterial or fungicidal activity requires increased amounts to guarantee the product will truly be preserved which ends up being damaging to skin. A company can use 30% tea tree oil to preserve a natural product, but the product’s scent would be at best described as unpleasant, and the plant’s terpinene and cineol components would cause skin irritation and damage skin cells. How is that a solution to making safer products?

In contrast, parabens as a group are still the most widely used preservative system worldwide. They have strong anti-fungal and gram-positive bacteria activity, are soluble in water, are active within the most common pH range for cosmetics, work brilliantly at low concentrations, and, in the amounts permitted for global use in cosmetic products, are unlikely to cause skin sensitization.

Did you know that methylparaben and propylparaben have GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) status in the United States for food use? I mentioned this before in an article I wrote about the paraben controversy in terms of exposure routes. As I stated then, how do we know that paraben accumulation in human breast tissue is from topical application via cosmetics? Considering that we ingest a certain amount of parabens in foods, we don’t. But it certainly makes more sense that accumulation in the body would be easier from ingestion rather than slathering it on skin.

I’m not going to go into detail about the earlier reports (weakly) linking parabens to breast cancer due to estrogenic activity, instead I will refer to a recent comparative study analyzing the effects of parabens, estrogen, and estrogenic compounds (many of which also occur naturally in foods) in adults exposed to them. The conclusion from this study “demonstrates that worst-case daily exposure to parabens would present substantially less risk relative to exposure to naturally occurring EACs [endocrine-active chemicals] in the diet such as the phytoestrogen daidzein.” To expand a bit, what the study considered “worst case exposure” to parabens is substantially greater than the amounts found in cosmetic products, even when multiple products with parabens are used. More directly, after examining several mitigating factors, the authors stated that “it is biologically implausible that parabens could increase the risk of any estrogen-mediated endpoint, including effects on the male reproductive tract or breast cancer.” Given this research and corresponding studies, I see no reason for any consumer to “go out of their way” to purchase paraben-free products. A thorough analysis of parabens by the Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR) board concluded that they do not accumulate in the body. Even when parabens are injected, the body quickly reduces concentrations via its excretory system. Animal studies have shown that parabens do not produce “fetal abnormalities” even when these animals are exposed to high levels.

Turning away from parabens, I want to be very clear that I am not “dead set against” natural preservatives. Most cosmetic chemists I have spoken with would love to be able to use natural preservatives—it’s what many consumers think is best (and that translates to more sales) and manufactures want to comply. However, they simply do not function as well at every parameter as synthetic preservatives, parabens or otherwise. Add to this the fact that natural preservatives are expensive to extract, and it’s easy to see why they’re infrequently used, in spite of consumer demand. As for the plethora of “safe, natural” preservatives you feel are available, please enlighten me. I would love to see such a system that could beat paraben blends or other preservative blends for safety and efficacy. From all the research I’ve done on this subject and the literature reviews I’ve read, such a system of natural preservatives doesn’t exist.

Another clarification I need to make is my alleged “soap-boxing” for parabens. I have never advocated parabens exclusively. What I am always advocating is balanced information that gives the consumer the entire picture and not a political or self-serving agenda. I have advocated for the use of a stable preservative system in cosmetics, paraben or otherwise. There are plenty of options to preserving products without parabens, some of which I have utilized in my own products. As consumer fear of parabens grows (largely due to misinformation perpetuated by the media and well-meaning environmental groups), more and more ingredient manufacturers are offering such alternatives. Time will tell if their long-term safety profile matches what we know to be true for parabens.

As for giving organic products a chance, I have done so, at least based on what is available. But the problem is that the term “organic” remains unregulated. As a result, any cosmetic product can use it, even if only a couple of its ingredients are truly organic. Until that changes (and such a change is in the works), it is difficult to separate products labeled as organic from most other cosmetics. And lest we forget, until the paraben controversy started, many so-called natural and organic lines routinely used parabens. Such companies included Aveda, Kiss My Face, Jason Natural, and Beauty Without Cruelty. There’s also the fact that most every line claiming to be natural uses plenty of synthetic ingredients. But because ingredient listings are so complicated many consumers cannot differentiate between a synthetic ingredient and a natural version.

I am aware of Boscia and Juice Beauty, and you’re right: these lines have not been reviewed yet. It needs to be stated that neither company is required to stamp their products with an expiration date. That they elect to do so is less a necessity and more of a convenience for consumers looking to keep close track of the shelf life of the products they use. Boscia is a preservative-free line, so their small sizes are understandable. At least they utilize packaging that keeps potential contamination to a minimum, and many of their products are packaged in opaque, airless components, which also help enhance preservation without the need for standard preservatives. However, I wouldn’t consider Boscia safer than other lines with preservatives, unless you have allergies to preservatives. Several of their products contain problematic plant extracts or fragrant oils (they use rosemary oil in a product meant for use around the eye) and many of their ingredients are found industry-wide. Juice Beauty may use several organic ingredients, but that doesn’t make their products better for your skin. For example, their lip balm contains cinnamon oil, which is irritating regardless of how it is grown. And since so many of their products contain fruit juices, the lack of preservatives is actually surprising. Think of how long an orange or apple lasts on your kitchen counter—and you want to put this stuff on your face, unpreserved, for months at a time? Moreover, most of their products, just like those from Origins, contain volatile fragrance components that can cause irritation. Wouldn’t those count as “harmful chemicals” too? What about the burden those ingredients have on our bodies? Organic products without irritants are possible—but I know of no company that is offering this solution, at least not across the board. Until such products hit the market, I wouldn’t blindly shop from any line touting organic as the solution to “harmful” chemicals.

Lastly, simply making products “purer” or with whole plants rather than isolated extracts does not negate the need for preservatives. If by “pure” you’re referring to natural ingredients, then in most cases the opposite would be true: such products would require more preservatives to combat the growth of bacteria and pathogens, again think of how long a head of lettuce or any “natural” ingredient lasts in your home.

I can tell from your letter that you’re frustrated as to how I have handled this issue thus far, but I feel strongly that your frustration would be better directed at those companies proffering organic without any standards outlining the concept, and to the so-called natural lines using ingredients research has proven are a problem for skin. Without question, the same cannot be said of parabens or many other preservatives that have been deemed safe as used.

Sources for the above: Preservatives for Cosmetics, Second Edition, Steinberg, Allured Publishing; 2007 CIR Compendium, Cosmetic Ingredient Review, pages 174-177; World Health Organization Technical Report Series, 2007, pages 1-92; Critical Reviews in Toxicology, June 2005, pages 435-458; and Journal of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics , December 2007, pages 567-572.