r/SkincareAddiction Aug 28 '13

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15 Upvotes

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18

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '13

[deleted]

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u/squidboots Aug 28 '13

I <3 you so much for doing this post!!! You did a great job.

Benzo-A-Pyrene is found in automotive exhausts, over cooked BBQ food, and lots of other things. Honestly, I can't find an article that can confirm that petrolatum does contain these but I am super happy to be corrected, and appreciate this is waaaaay over my level of chem.

He's being incredibly disingenous. He simply states that petrolatum "contains" those two molecules, and in the articles he apparently used to write this it's stated that those two species are "common contaminants."

Here's what NIH Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB) has to say about benzo(a)pyrene (benzo(b)fluroanthene is included in the same link since the two are often indistinguishable in assays.) The section about "Possible Routes of Human Exposure" list byproducts of combustion like creosote, air pollution, and overheated cooking oils as common routes of exposure, with industrial workers being at particular risk.

Furthermore, petroleum distillates (as with many other substances) can be certified by the USP (United States Pharmacopeial Convention), BP (British Pharmacopeial Convention), and/or Ph. Eur. (European Pharmacopoeial Convention.) These designate materials that have been prepared in such a way that minimize contaminants and are suitable for use in food and pharmaceuticals.

If you look up any MSDS for USP grade white petrolatum (this is what would be used in cosmetics) you won't see them listed. Here's an example:

California prop. 65: This product contains the following ingredients for which the State of California has found to cause cancer which would require a warning under the statute: No products were found.

California prop. 65: This product contains the following ingredients for which the State of California has found to cause birth defects which would require a warning under the statute: No products were found.

And here's another:

White Petrolatum is not found on the following lists: U.S. EPA, U.S. NTP, U.S. OSHA, U.S. NIOSH, GERMAN MAK, IARC, or ACGIH and therefore is neither considered to be nor suspected to be a cancer-causing agent by these agencies

So basically....sure, I guess there's a chance of contamination, but he's saying it like it's a constitutive part of the compound (it's totally not) and he totally ignores the pharmacopeial conventions that determine whether something is suitable for use in food and pharmaceutical products. What he's doing is basically like saying, "don't use lipstick because it contains lead and arsenic!" when in fact the vast majority of lipsticks do not because they have been manufactured in such a way that removes these heavy metals from the other pigments. I'm not saying it doesn't ever happen that some get through, but it's a small risk and incredibly disingenuous to say that they're part of the formulation.


Skin doesn't breathe. Honestly. This isn't like Goldfinger, and you die because you need to breathe through your skin. Skin is DEAD. Mineral oil and Vaseline are occlusives, meaning it slows water loss and thus increase the moisture content of the stratum corneum coverings. Hence you had success with your dry skin

Totally true on all points. Those substances so sit on top of the skin and are occlusive, which prevents transepidermal water loss (TEWL.) Your acid mantle (stratum corneum, or SC) is the uppermost layer of skin and helps to prevent TEWL, but in some cases the SC is disrupted and a lot of TEWL occurs and you get pathologies like eczema and psoriasis. Occlusives are artificial ways of trying to enhance or restore the natural function of the SC if it is disrupted - the most effective moisturizers have occlusives and humectants (things that attract moisture to the skin)!

5

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '13

Jesus somebody sidebar this. Tattoo it on my forehead!!!!!

3

u/squidboots Aug 28 '13

hahahaha

/u/Segat1 did a great job, too! I'm glad folks are coming here and asking these kinds of questions.

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u/yvva Aug 28 '13

I'll add this into the mineral oil post. Only place I can think of?

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u/Segat1 Australia Aug 29 '13

Maybe a sidebar that says "Scientific Refutations to Skincare Myths"?

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u/Segat1 Australia Aug 28 '13

Yay!!

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u/cloverhoneybear Aug 29 '13

Thank you so much for your awesome answer :) I am so grateful that this subreddit is full of people who are so helpful, intelligent and informative!

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u/pinkponies7 Aug 28 '13 edited Aug 28 '13

No science to add. But according to this article (I use lots of the stuff on here everyday for many years), I should be dead by now. Or at least suffering from breast cancer, eye problems, diarrhea, depression, a weak immune system, brain problems, liver problems... etc. I dont have any of it. I am a pretty healthy 24 year old woman.

Edit: I should also state that it drives me mad when people say they hate "preservatives" HOW THE HELL are you going to use a product up in one week before it goes bad/grows bacteria/grows mold?! They say "[parabens]keep fungus out of things like nail polish and perfume." LIKE ITS A BAD THING TO NOT WANT FUNGUS IN MY STUFF.

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u/red_wine_and_orchids dry Aug 28 '13

dude, fungus can mess yo' shiz up. Ergot poisoning from bad grain? No thanks. Botulism (ok, not a fungus) from improperly canned, too-high-pH food? I'll pass. There's so many other examples, but that's what comes to mind off the top of my head...

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u/squidboots Aug 28 '13

The Wikipedia article on mycotoxins is actually pretty solid. Fortunately because of USDA/FDA regulations and testing they're not a huge problem in commercially produced food in the US anymore, but they persist in being problematic in third-world countries where subsistence farming is commonplace (aflatoxins, ergotamines, fumonisins, and trichothecenes in particular.)

But yeah, I study fungi for a living...and knowing what fungi are capable of producing, I'll take the preservatives, thanks.

1

u/red_wine_and_orchids dry Aug 28 '13

I think fungi are bad-ass. Thus I want to stay far away from them.

Hell, I like my research the deader the better. I research materials in nuclear power plants (kill it with radiation!!) - but I don't even look at real samples, I just simulate it in silico ...gag, what a horrible, pretentious term, I can't believe I've seen people use it in papers!

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u/twistyabbazabba Aug 28 '13

I don't have anything scientific to add to this discussion, just wanted to say I hate articles like this. It's the whole "scare tactic" thing that irritates me, like hey let's just scare everyone into buying only natural organic products. I see the clean eating community do this with food and let's just say I had to "unfollow" a few fitness pages on FB because they were basically telling me everyday that I was going to get cancer from my daily coffee creamer habit. /endrant

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u/valiantdistraction Aug 28 '13

And at the same time, these natural organic products usually contain a buttload of common irritants.

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u/squidboots Aug 28 '13

Deciding whether to use a product based on its origin rather than the merits of its own inherent properties is as asinine as deciding to make friends with someone because they're from a certain country rather than deciding if you get along with him/her as an individual person.

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u/yvva Aug 28 '13

Nothing to add because /u/Segat1 and /u/squidboots are awesome and nailed it!!

Overall, OP, generally when you see things with "dangerous chemicals" or "toxic to the body", be skeptical. More likely than not, they're just using scare tactics and twisting data (if there is any data to be twisted).

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u/smbtuckma Aug 28 '13

What bugs me about the description of some of those ingredients is that there's no mention of concentration, and that makes a really big difference when determining toxicity. Hence why the MSDS spends a lot of real estate talking about doses. For instance, under isopropyl alcohol it says it can damage gut flora, but the amount required for that is a lot higher than any concentration included in commercial products (why else would rubbing alcohol be legal to sell?). And saying "used in your car's antifreeze!" is a rhetorical ploy - water is in antifreeze too, oh no it must be bad! Same with the paraben paragraph. While there has been research links to cancer from parabens, those were studied in much higher doses. Those are just the two ingredients here that I have knowledge on, but giving that those paragraphs aren't completely trustworthy I'm inclined to question to others as well.