afraid of the fine print and learn to read product labels to determine good and bad product
ingredients, so you can select skin care products that are most beneficial for you.
Quickly scanning the ingredients list for offending substances is probably the most important skill
you have to master. Being able to quickly decipher the ingredients list instead of listening to a
salesperson’s chatter will save you money, time, and frustration. I have long lost count of how many
times a salesperson offered me “completely natural” stretch mark butter or an eye cream, even while
the ingredients list was bursting with parabens, PEGs, and formaldehyde preservatives.
Many cosmetic manufacturers don’t help us at all. The worse the formulation is, the harder the box
is to read. To discourage curious customers from prying into cosmetic secrets, they print ingredients
lists in all-capitalized dense letters with very small spaces between lines, so the whole area looks
like one grayish square filled with chemical jabber. Often the lavish design masks the most noxious
ingredients. Some of them may be hiding under natural-sounding names or abbreviations. Cocamide
DEA may sound natural, but in fact it is coconut oil diethanolamine, and we already know that
diethanolamine, along with triethanolamine, may be contaminated with carcinogenic chemicals.
Here’s a funny thing I stumbled across on the Internet one day. It described two variations of
diethanolamine as two completely different substances. “DEA is a clear watery liquid, while
lauramide DEA is a rock hard solid. In essence, these ingredients are as different from each other as
are apples and automobiles,” says Dr. Dennis T. Sepp in the article “DEA, Setting the Record
Straight” published on a website that sells “natural” skin care products. Yeah, right—and ice and
snow are completely different from water, too. See, one is hard and the other one is fluffy, and they
look nothing like water! This is just one example of how cosmetic companies and incompetent experts
use to their advantage our lack of desire to question and criticize.
When properly written, the labels can provide you with a lot of useful information. In the United
States and Canada, any chemical above 1 percent by weight in the formula is required to be listed in
order of concentration. The general rule of thumb is, the higher amount of an ingredient the product
contains, the higher position it will occupy in the ingredients list. So pay attention to which ingredient
is listed first. Good cleansers and toners start with water, followed by mild detergent or soap at the
beginning of the list; toners may begin with water, witch hazel, or alcohol right in the first line. For
example, a mediocre toner would list a propylene glycol second in the list of ingredients; a good one
will contain floral water, witch hazel, or glycerin. A heavy moisturizer will list mineral oil or
petrolatum as its second ingredient, right after water. Such moisturizers will contain many pore-
clogging ingredients and therefore will not be suitable for acne sufferers. However, a moisturizer that
lists mineral oil somewhere in the middle of the fine print would be less likely to cause breakouts, but
nevertheless is less suitable for oily skin than a moisturizer with no mineral oil at all, such as a lotion
based on olive oil.
Good cleansers and toners start with water, followed by mild detergent or soap at the
beginning of the list; toners may begin with water, witch hazel, or alcohol right in the first line.
Most often, preservatives, fragrances, and colors are listed at the end of the list. However, I have
seen formulations that listed triethanolamine and paraben preservatives right in the first line, which
means that this particular product contained a lot of very questionable substances. But even if there’s
less than 1 percent of an ingredient contained in the bottle or jar, it doesn’t mean that it cannot get any
job done. Peptides, enzymes, vitamins, and antioxidants acids are all used in smaller than 1 percent
concentrations.
When you think about it, even 1 percent is quite a bit of a chemical. If you imagine 1 percent of a