Mariah Blake

The threshold is so high that only 11 cosmetic ingredients have been restricted by the FDA since 1938.

It's really almost...

impossible.

For contrast, the European Union has regulated 1,400 chemicals in cosmetics, but they proactively test the ingredients in cosmetics for safety.

So in 2022, there was a law passed to modernize cosmetic regulation.

And that was really the first significant change to the way we regulate personal care products since the 1930s.

And it gives the FDA more power over things like recall, but it doesn't compel the FDA to review the safety of chemicals in cosmetics or restrict those that are harmful.

So the FDA still has really, really limited authority.

That law did require the FDA to study the effects of forever chemicals or PFAS in cosmetics, so how widely used they are and potential health effects.

But otherwise, the FDA has basically the same authority that it did a century ago.

So in the absence of federal laws protecting the public from chemicals, states have stepped in and begun very aggressively in some case regulating chemicals and consumer goods and cosmetics.

So, so far, 17 states have adopted more than 40 laws regulating

restricting toxic chemicals in personal care products.

And that's happening largely in response to ordinary citizens who are concerned about toxic chemicals, because the survey data tells us that this is an issue that concerns everybody, regardless of their political backgrounds.

Nobody wants their children being exposed to toxic chemicals in the home.

Nobody wants

their body lotion to be exposing them to toxic chemicals.

This is not a partisan issue.

This is a human issue.

So at this point right now, 30 U.S. states have passed a total of, I think, 120 laws on PFAS, including 14 full or partial bans on these chemicals and consumer products.