FDA regulations on beauty products.

Sep 10, 2015

Jasmin B.

Hi Beauties! Long time no see.
I recently read an article on HelloGiggle about a company under investigation from the FDA first for unsafe ingredients in their product and then for mislabeling said product after the company made a statement. It brought to attention the fact that cosmetics products and ingredients aren't subject to pre-market testing by the FDA. I'm wondering what your thoughts on the subject are!

I hope this is posted in the correct place!

Sep 10, 2015

Lisa S.

Hmmm thats interesting, I've never heard of that brand though! Reminds me a lot of Lime Crimes issues. It is pretty scary to think about unsafe products out there but I feel like most big brands are more careful about that stuff, but it still happens! I'll have to do some research on them though because like I said I haven't heard of them before. Following to see what others opinions are on this subject.💕

Sep 11, 2015

Alyx T.

Lisa - hellogiggles is a website not the brand. I'm pretty sure that it's about limecrime, I haven't seen any others in trouble with the fda.

But the thing is, if there is ANY reason to be suspicious, they check. They do get samples in but just of the ingredient list, they check it over and then they approve. In limecrimes case, they kept lying about ingredients, like saying that they were vegan and then they got caught (by the fda and the customers). The ingredients in that case were always labeled on the box, but they didn't put all the ingredients on the website which caused inconsistencies and they used two products not fda approved in the states for just lips, it is approved for face and eyes, but approved in pretty much every other country.

It would be incredibly hard to test every single product, there's thousands of brands that come out with hundreds of products, every color having different ingredients, so they NEED to list and send into the fda the ingredients (and amounts) to make sure it's safe. Like I said, if any suspension is raised, like saying your products are vegan when they aren't, they will check and get involved. But every ingredient list is reviewed.

Sep 11, 2015

Lisa S.

@Alyx, haha okay see I definitely need to do more research on it! Thanks!

Sep 11, 2015

Alyx T.

No problem! Just didn't want you to be searching for a brand called hellogiggles lol. It's zoey deschanel's website. Now it has a bunch of writers but it's not a makeup brand (yet at least). I did a quick search and couldn't find any other brands that had even an fda letter sent to them

Sep 11, 2015

Alyx T.

So this is the article https://hellogiggles.com/lipstick-fda-investigation/ but it does have a lot of misinformation. The Fda DOES require ingredient lists before they are allowed to sell as a trademark brand. Indie brands with no business licenses yet don't, but that's a risk you take with brands that aren't authentic with the fda.

I posted a thread before about lime crime when it happened if you want more about the ingredients and the process. http://www.beautylish.com/t/icaxjm/lime-crime-again

Sep 12, 2015

Jasmin B.

Thank you beauties for your answers! Alyx, I'm wondering if you have anymore information on FDA requirements within the beauty industry since you seem to have knowledge on this (:

Sep 12, 2015

Alyx T.

I have done a lot of research on it, especially Canadian standards so I'd be happy to share but you'd have to ask questions about it or I'd have pages of info lol.

Sep 15, 2015

Mallory L.

Unfortunately, FDA regulations is a joke. They have no standards when it comes to brands labeling themselves vegan/organic/all natural. There are no standards for what ingredients are not acceptable in the You.S., which is sad because other countries have banned plenty of unsafe ingredients from being used in cosmetics. the same applies for food made here in the You.S., which is why over 30 countries have banned any food that was produced/grown in the You.S. Here in the You.S., we spray all types of chemicals on our crops, put all types of dangerous, carcinogenic ingredients in out products and then wonder why the You.S. has such a staggeringly high rate of cancer and diet related illnesses. Some less developed countries have begun adopting our agriculture system within the last 10 years and all of a sudden, those countries' rate of cancer sky-rocketed. Coincidence? Doubt it.

Sep 15, 2015

Mallory L.

No idea why my phone autocorrected US to You.S. Smh.

Sep 15, 2015

Alyx T.

They have standards on vegan, and cruelty free, but literally everything is natural so that's not monitored. Same with organic, there's nothing to filter there.

They do testing, they ban anything with an allergic rate of 90%, they ban anything that has been proven to be linked to cancer in more than 10 cases, and anything that causes birth defects must have a label on it or the brand can be used and shut down. Carcinogens are extremely hard to find, because it's not easy to do case studies on it, and unless you monitor them from birth to when they get cancer, there's zero way to know exactly what caused it. A lot of the time you see "potential carcinogenic" because someone got cancer, claimed they never went out in the sun or smoked or anything, and blamed it on the first product they can. But the government has to put that information as a warning, because they have to. They can't prove it, and there's really no way to prove it was the only thing that contributed to cancer without treating the entire country like lab rats from birth and watching their every move.


I live in Canada where it's stricter as well, but the US's fda is fine. Compared to the UK they have more bans. The ingredients in question on this topic are banned for use in products that goes into the lips, because it's a known allergen and irritant to them. But it's in things that go on the face and eyes and perfectly safe for that, there's been less than 100 cases of irritants on the face or eyes in the US. On the lips there is were too many, so they banned it. The US is quite strict on its ingredients, and a lot of countries don't have very regulated ingredients in cosmetics especially.

Sep 17, 2015

Jasmin B.

That's pretty much all the information I was looking for alyx! Thank you for spreading your knowledge (:

Sep 17, 2015

Jasmin B.

And thank you Mallory for contributing to the conversation respectfully (:

Sep 17, 2015

Alyx T.

No problem! I'm very interested in chemistry, especially chemistry is cosmetics, so my research ends up being almost entirely about the fda sometimes Haha.