Ingredient Watch: Parabens

‘Paraben’ is definitely a buzzword in the beauty blogosphere, but as usual it’s a word that I only became familiar with when I started LolaStarHearts. So what are parabens, and why do we hate them?

Simply speaking, parabens are chemical preservatives mainly used in the cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries to fight bacteria and fungus. You’ll find parabens in a wide range of your day-to-day products, such as shampoo, toothpaste, deodorants, moisturisers and makeup.

They’re widely used because they are very cheap to make – essentially, the cheaper the items cost to manufacture, the more they can produce and the cheaper they can sell them for. But it comes at a cost.

Parabens have been found to mimic a hormone called estrogen, which is known to play a role in the development on breast cancer. Say what?! ‘They’ [whoever they are!] also found parabens in breast tumours, and believe that there’s definitely some sort of link. Unaltered parabens found in the breast cancer tissue of study participants showed that the chemical is able to penetrate the skin and remain in breast tissue.

Going through my bathroom is was shocked to see how many of my favourite products actually contain one or two of the four most used parabens – ethylparaben, butylparaben, methylparaben and propylparaben.

Now the argument goes both ways, there have been studies from both sides and none have been conclusive. And of course parabens go on the list of everything else that may cause cancer – being black (just my luck, eh?!), bacon, toasters, jewellery, kissing, the list goes on … – honestly I’m not joking!

A lot of the things in the list I just mentioned have links to cancerous tumours, but I take them with a pinch of salt. When it comes to parabens I try to do the same thing, but I also make a conscious effort to buy products that don’t contain them – no point in tempting fate!

Where do you stand on the paraben debate?

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