GoodGuide Skin Care Products Ratings

It’s nice to take care of your skin and achieve that healthy, radiant, glowing look. But, like sitting out in the sun for too long to improve a tan, many skin care products achieve the end result (nice skin) with questionable methods and ingredients. Moisturizers and body lotions, in particular, come with ingredient lists that are often 40 or 50 chemicals long, and although most of those ingredients aren’t particularly worrisome, some are—like BHA, an immune system and organ toxicant (and possible carcinogen), and aluminum starch octenylsuccinate, a neurotoxin that could come contaminated with heavy metals like lead or arsenic. (more)

Moisturizers often use oxybenzone or cetereath-20, which enhance absorption and allow the other chemical ingredients in the product to better get into your skin. You’ll also sometimes find sodium methylparaben, controversial for its links to breast cancer and endocrine disruption, and immune system toxicants triethanolamine and DMDM hydantoin.

Triclosan, an anti-bacterial ingredient found in a huge variety of skin care products, also shows up in lotions and moisturizers, is a health concern as a skin irritant, and is an environmental concern for the way it accumulates in the environment and is hazardous to marine life.

Skin care products also use “fragrance”, a trade-secret blend of ingredients that’s an allergy concern and could conceal other more harmful chemicals such as phthalates, which are tied to a number of human health problems.

You can look for all these chemicals in the ingredients ratings here or browse our data for skin care products with high health and environmental ratings. And you can check for companies that don’t test their products on animals.