People want to know that the products they are using are safe but scientific information about ingredient safety is often more complicated than the average consumer can be expected to understand. Due to expanding interest in this topic, “explaining” the safety of ingredients has increasingly become a popular focus among content creators, marketers, and the media. It’s easy for complex scientific information to be oversimplified or taken out of context by non-experts who don’t understand the nuances of ingredient safety and by marketers to sell products. When trying to better understand ingredients, it’s a great idea to consult experts and the rise of science communication across many industries, including beauty, has made credible distilled and digestible information more and more accessible.
At Lilaque, we believe that typically, the ingredients in properly formulated nail products are safe when used as instructed and the claims we make around our differentiation have always focused on sustainability of our unique ingredients and the ways in they provide a superior user experience for our customers. Our founder Julie has deep expertise in ingredients in the nail industry and she recently sat down with Christina Hunt with the Pro/Ject podcast to talk about the messages currently being communicated about ingredients in the beauty industry. Here is some expanded detail on the main points that Julie makes on the episode - be sure to check out the full episode here!
“When I use my expertise to research the facts behind these narratives that sow fear around certain ingredients, most of them don’t worry me.”
What do sulfates, parabens, and the active ingredients in chemical sunscreens have in common? They are all ingredients that have been – in the opinion of many scientists, unfairly - demonized by major media attention, yet have extremely important functions in their respective formulations. Removing or replacing them with ingredients that are less understood or subpar in performance are already having unintended negative consequences that may far outweigh the reasons they have been demonized in the first place. For example, this article makes a point that there has been a rise in product recalls from contaminated products due to the subpar performance of paraben-free preservative systems, and an alarming number of people are opting not to use sunscreen due fear around chemical sunscreens, putting them at a higher risk of skin cancer.
“Mental health is a huge component of our overall health and I think we are seeing more harm done by unnecessary worry about ingredient safety than by unsafe ingredients.”
There are many motives behind narratives that inspire fear about ingredients, and these motivations are not always aligned with a desire to warn a consumer about a legitimate danger. Messages that evoke fear, even when unsubstantiated, are more likely to go viral because they can provoke intense emotions that lead to actions like spreading the information and sometimes this this chance of achieving virality is the intention of the person sharing the message. Fear also sells – just look at how brands are using claims to offer a sense of safety in their products, when many are completely meaningless from a scientific perspective.
Does all of this fear mongering really hurt us if all we are doing is avoiding certain products unnecessarily? The downside of all of this fear-laced messaging can be damage to our mental health. Do we really want to live in a world where we fear the products we use in our daily lives and question the motivations of the people that make them? Or might it just be better to stop the flow of the incorrect information in the first place.
“Formulators and regulators want consumer products to be safe. They are the experts at ensuring this and they are doing their jobs.”
It’s a fair point that science can appear unreliable when certain conclusions “flip flop” and this can make people suspicious of the claims that scientists make. But what many non-scientists don’t realize is that changing information is the nature of the scientific process and good scientists are always questioning and scrutinizing scientific work. Many people can feel uncomfortable with the fact that in science there is often a lot yet to be understood on any given topic, so scientists work with what they do understand and when rigorously tested, conclusions can change. However, good science does not randomly accept ideas without rigorous investigation and any given conclusion is rarely black and white. Much like there are good and bad ways to do just about any type of activity you can think of, there are good and bad ways to do science and there is often nuance to every set of conclusions, sometimes leading to what can seem like contradictions.
It’s the job of formulators and regulators to ensure product safety just as much as it’s the job of content creators to create viral content and the job of marketers to sell products through their messaging. We believe that the formulators and regulators are the best people to do the job at ensuring safety of consumer products and that have all of the intentions to do so.
Learn more about Christina’s work and the Pro/Ject podcast here. Don’t forget to listen to the whole episode here!