Can We Really Count on the Cosmetics Industry to Keep Us Safe?

Right now, you can go online and buy GK Hair Taming System with Juvexin® “Curly” or “Resistant” products. You can do this although these products are only intended for use by salon professionals. Even more troublingly, you can make your purchase even though the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning letter months ago informing the company that its products are so risky, they’re illegal.

Last fall, FDA testing revealed that samples of the two products contained between 3.9 percent and 4.85 percent methylene glycol. Those amounts are 30 to 40 times higher than what the cosmetics industry itself considers safe.

In April 2011 – just over five years ago – EWG warned the public and FDA that GK Hair treatments contained dangerous levels of formaldehyde.

The maker of the GK Hair Taming System with Juvexin® products, Van Tibolli Beauty Corp., touts Juvexin® as a “keratin anti-aging protein blend … [d]erived from pristine sheep wool through an environmentally friendly process.” But the Taming System “Curly” and “Resistant” products also deliver hefty doses of methylene glycol – which is just formaldehyde suspended in water – which releases formaldehyde gas when treated hair is heated and the water evaporates.

Formaldehyde is associated with potential long-term health dangers such as cancer, and it can also lead to respiratory irritation, rashes, dizziness and even nosebleeds and vomiting.

The federal cosmetics law is so notoriously weak and outdated that FDA had few options to address this threat to public health. Although the FDA sent its warning last September, today there is no sign that the agency has issued a “closeout letter” confirming that Van Tibolli Beauty Corp. has fully addressed these concerns. And while “Curly” and “Resistant” Taming System products no longer appear for sale on GK Hair’s own website, they continue to be available on popular third-party sites.

So what is the cosmetics industry doing about this? After all, some companies contend the industry can effectively regulate itself without greater FDA oversight. The industry established the Cosmetic Ingredient Review decades ago to assesses the safety of ingredients and make recommendations intended to keep members on the up and up.

In 2013, that industry panel concluded that methylene glycol in personal care products was not safe at levels above 0.118 percent, specifically noting that “in the present practices of use and concentration … hair-smoothing products containing formaldehyde and methylene glycol are unsafe.”

Companies that belong to the industry trade association are supposedly obliged to follow the recommendations of the CIR Expert Panel. Yet even though Van Tibolli Beauty Corp.’s products can contain more than 40 times the panel’s recommended limit for methylene glycol, the company remains listed as an active member of the trade association.

Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) have proposed a bill to reform the outdated federal cosmetics laws. Their Personal Care Products Safety Act would require manufacturers to report “adverse health events” linked to their products to FDA and empower the agency to recall products that prove to be dangerous.

Moreover, companies would have to substantiate that their formulations are safe before putting them on store shelves, and manufacturers would have to ensure that their products were made in a clean and safe environment. The bill would also finally give FDA authority to review ingredients whose safety has been questioned for years by public health experts.

Consumers need and deserve the stronger cosmetics regulations and FDA enforcement proposed in this bill, not an industry left to regulate itself.

Photo: Screenshot taken from the GK Hair website from August 3, 2015.

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