Q: Should we be worried about trace carcinogens in shampoos if the government says they’re not toxic?

A: If you’re standing in the shower with a head full of suds, you might want to rinse off and listen in.

By now, reading Ecoholic has taught you that your personal care products might be peddled as the closest thing to nature since Eve, but in the Wild West of beauty care, they can still be loaded with all kinds of dodgy, cancer-linked chemicals, including one making headlines this month: 1,4-dioxane. 

You won’t spot it on ingredient lists, but the Organic Consumers Association found 1,4-dioxane in 46 per cent of “natural” and “organic” branded shampoos, body washes and hand soaps tested, including major alt names like Avalon, Jason, Kiss My Face and Nature’s Gate (Update: These products have been reformulated to have no detectable levels of 1,4-dioxane according to tests). 

In early 2009, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics made an even bigger splash when it commissioned independent lab work on 48 conventional baby products and found 67 per cent tested positive for the chem (including Johnson’s Moisture Care Baby Wash, Sesame Street Bubble Bath and Aveeno Baby Soothing Relief Creamy Wash).

What is 1,4-dioxane, and what’s it doing hiding behind labels? Well, besides being a multi-talented industrial solvent, 1,4-dioxane shows up in a process called ethoxylation in which harsher chemicals like sudser sodium laurel sulphate (SLS) are “softened up.” (SLS’s ethoxylated to make milder and more water-soluble sodium laureth sulphate). 

It’s an unwanted by-product, so that’s why it doesn’t have to appear on the label, but that doesn’t mean health advocates are cool with it.

It’s considered a probable carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the European Union has recalled products that contain it. Since 1988, California has forced any product that incorporates 1,4-dioxane (either intentionally or unintentionally) to carry a warning label that reads “This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer.”

Actually, Cali’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against Avalon Natural Products, Whole Foods and others last year for failing to warn consumers about the presence of 1,4 in their beauty potions.

According to legal docs, “[The] plaintiff alleges that each defendant has known since at least May 29, 2004, that the body washes and gels and liquid dish soaps contain 1,4-dioxane and that persons using these products are exposed to 1,4-dioxane. Said violations render each defendant liable to plaintiff for civil penalties of up to $2,500 per day for each violation.” Wowzers.

But Canada? Well, just last week the feds decided they wouldn’t officially declare 1,4-dioxane toxic. As you can imagine, environmental health advocates aren’t exactly pleased. 

Sure 1,4-dioxane is on Health Canada’s Cosmetic Ingredient hot list, meaning it can’t be intentionally added to cosmetics, but no one’s saying it can’t get there – wink, wink – “accidentally.” 

Officials could easily force companies to keep all forms of 1,4 out, since plenty of manufacturers already vacuum-strip ethoxylated ingredients to remove 1,4-dioxane before they formulate personal care products. So why isn’t this mandatory? 

Environmental Defence has launched a campaign asking Canadians to write to those in change to complain (petition.environmentaldefence.ca/dioxane).

To answer your question about whether you should be worried about trace carcinogens if the feds aren’t, look, using a shampoo with 1,4-dioxane isn’t going to kill you. Even the people behind the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics say so.

But they also add that “repeated exposures from many different products add up. The same baby could be exposed to 1,4-dioxane from baby shampoo, bath bubbles and body wash in a single bath, as well as from other contaminated personal care products today, tomorrow and the next day.” Ditto for adults. 

Why not eliminate toxins we know about instead of adding more to our total body burden and hoping the chemical bath of “acceptable carcinogens” doesn’t give us cancer 20 years down the line? 

If you wanna wash those chems right out of your hair, send the feds a letter before your next shower.

INGREDIENTS OFTEN HIDING 1,4-DIOXANE

• Sodium laureth sulphate

• Ammonium laureth sulphate

• Polyethylene

• Polyethylene glycol (PEG)

• Laureth

• Oleth

• Myreth

• Ceteareth

• Octoxynol

• Polyoxyethylene (POE)

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