We’ve teamed with over 100 brands to support the long-awaited legislation, set to revolutionize beauty product safety in the US. 

Clean beauty champions, rejoice: the government is working on a bill to regulate the safety of cosmetic care products.

While most of us know by now to check our food labels for harmful ingredients (we’re looking at you, high-fructose corn syrup), it seems that in the beauty industry, anything goes. In the United States, brands aren’t legally mandated to list complete ingredient information on labels, and while we all use personal care products every day — from shampoo to moisturizer and everything in between — many of us have no idea what we’re really putting on (and in) our bodies.

As the body’s largest organ, many of the products we use on our skin wind up absorbed into the bloodstream. Clean beauty advocates (like us at Silk Therapeutics!) have called for increased oversight into the beauty industry, so customers can be better equipped to make informed, safe choices about the products they use daily.

The US hasn’t updated its cosmetics safety laws since 1938, so the Personal Care Products Safety Act marks a much-needed step in the right direction. Submitted by Senators Dianne Feinstein and Susan Collins, the proposed bill seeks to modernize the 80-year old legislation — boosting beauty product safety by arming the FDA with the same tools used for ensuring the safety of food and pharmaceuticals. These include:

• A safety review of at least five ingredient categories per year
• Complete ingredient information provided on product labels
• FDA authority to recall unsafe beauty products
• Increased manufacturing oversight, including site inspections for cleanliness and safety

While not an overnight solution, we’re excited to see progress being made towards creating a safer beauty industry. Though EU regulations ban over 1,300 toxic chemicals from personal care products, the US prohibits only 30. Conditions such as hormone disruption and even cancer have been linked to chemical exposure — and with the average woman using 12 personal care products daily (containing roughly 168 different chemicals!), the time for change is now.

The bill is still being debated in Washington, but while we wait for it to become law, it’s easy to make mindful swaps. The EWG Skin Deep database is a great resource, making it simple to jumpstart your clean routine by ditching big offenders such as parabens, phthalates and SLS. When it comes to ingredients, less is definitely more, and here at Silk Therapeutics, we’re committed to developing clean, highly concentrated formulas, ensuring that each individual ingredient plays a valuable role in enhancing skin health.

Every voice matters. Help us spread the word about this important issue by contacting your representatives and letting them know why you support the Personal Care Products Safety Act.