Ami Zoda

Maybe sometimes people just see this as like a women's health issue.

And it's not like an everybody issue, but it is, right?

Everyone uses some kind of cosmetics, whether it's soap or lotion or toothpaste.

And also think about exposures to kids, because even young kids...

get their hair straightened.

We use lotions on kids.

You know, you think about the toy makeup kits.

Like, I have an 11-year-old.

When my daughter was 8 or 9, she started getting these toy makeup kits at birthday parties, and they were beautiful, and I would have loved for her to be able to use them, but I'd take a look at the ingredients, and I'm like, there is no way.

Almost everyone is impacted, and it's one of the most poorly regulated or under-regulated industries.

It's largely industry-driven and mostly voluntary forms of regulation.

So FDA provides really minimal oversight, and they also have minimal funding to actually make sure that the industries are really following the regulations that are there.

And so most of the regulations and the type of testing the companies do is to make sure there aren't like adverse immediate reactions like eczema or skin rashes and that type of stuff.

The system of regulation is less effective at gauging long-term risk like those that may lead to cancer, right?

or difficulty in getting pregnant.

It's mostly testing one product at a time and looking at sort of short-term effects.

It doesn't really have a great framework for thinking about long-term risk from all the products we use collectively, something us scientists call cumulative impacts.

Basically, the idea is to shine a light on the social and historical factors that drive what we find beautiful.

Because beauty is a very old form of power.

It's a gendered form of power.