The Safe Cosmetics Campaign (SCC) has been exploring the health of our beauty regimens since its launch in 2002. Back then, environmental and public health groups tested beauty products for the presence of phthalates, a family of industrial chemicals linked to birth defects. What they found was surprising: Nearly 75 percent of the products tested positive. Eventually, after these chemicals were banned in Europe, most American companies agreed to remove two types of phthalates, DEHP and DBP, from cosmetics. However, DEP ‑- or diethyl phthalate ‑- is still a staple ingredient in many beauty products, despite its reported hazards.

"While the cosmetics industry maintains that the tiny bit found in any given product is harmless, growing awareness in the scientific arena is that these small doses add up and can have a large effect on our health," explains Stacy Malkan, director of communications for Health Care without Harm. The European Union's Cosmetics Directive, signed in 2004, requires products to be free of chemicals that "are known or strongly suspected of causing cancer or birth defects." And while legislation is pending in California and New York to help safeguard consumers from these chemicals, no protective federal policy is on the horizon.

"In general, what I tell my patients is that cosmeceuticals, including cosmetics, are not regulated the way that other drugs are regulated," says Dr. Joely Kaufman, assistant professor of dermatology at the University of Miami. "The FDA does not require cosmetic companies to obtain preapproval for a new cosmetic product before its release on the market."

As a result, 89 percent of the ingredients found in most cosmetics today have not been tested for safety, according to Malkan. Meanwhile, the list of ingredients turning out to be potential or confirmed carcinogens continues to grow. Tim Kropp, a toxicologist with the Environmental Working Group, singles out parabens and phthalates as the most worrisome cosmetic ingredients. In addition, the SCC cautions consumers about the use of products containing formaldehyde, coal tar, lead acetate, silica, propylene glycol and sodium lauryl sulphate.

Given that U.S. legislation is slow in coming, the SCC has been appealing directly to manufacturers to phase out the use of these and other carcinogens. Thus far over 100 companies have signed the organization's Compact for Safe Cosmetics, pledging to replace any potentially harmful ingredients with safer alternatives within three years.

"Parabens are the most widely used preservatives in the body care industry," reports Laura Genoway, product consultant for Avalon Organics, one of the compact's signers. Genoway explains that the "knowledge that paraben preservatives act as endocrine disruptors and estrogen mimickers" led the company to revise its formulations.