Ingredient to Avoid: Phenoxyethanol

Phenoxyethanol: a terrible name to spell and maybe not so great for your body either. It's a preservative commonly found in cosmetics but has been linked to irritation, organ system toxicity and potential reproductive damage. 

Preservatives are a whole can of worms, which we've already delved into in another blog post. However, there's usually one particular chemical or group that's Public Enemy Number One at any given time. For a while now it's been parabens, but since many companies have now given up the use of these, the spotlight is turning to phenoxyethanol instead. 

Like many preservatives, phenoxyethanol is definitely an irritant if applied directly to the skin, and is known to cause liver and kidney damage in high doses. It's important to remember, however, that preservatives are only added to products in very small amounts, so it's unlikely that such effects will occur as a result of phenoxyethanol being included in your cosmetics. 

That doesn't mean that phenoxyethanol is safe though. Some studies have linked it to reproductive damage, after it was shown to cause chromosomal changes and genetic mutations in mice. As far as I am aware, the same effects have not been demonstrated in any human study, but since poisoning human babies isn't actually allowed in clinical trials, any human data will always be thin on the ground and based on studies conducted in the real world after the fact, so it's almost impossible to state confidently whether a given substance is safe or not in this area. Many people feel it's better to be safe than sorry. 

Personally, I have an aversion to any synthetic preservative. My skin has always reacted badly to them, and I'm not alone in that. Many people with hypersensitive skin find that it is the preservative in the product that they are actually reacting to, and in my experience synthetic preservatives are far more likely to cause sensitivities than plant-based ones. When you think about it, that makes sense. Our bodies have spent billions of years interacting with plants in one form or another, but barely a couple of centuries interacting with chemicals synthesised in a laboratory. 

One problem I encountered with phenoxyethanol in particular is that many cosmetic ingredients are supplied with it added as a standard preservative. Such ingredients include aloe vera gel, hydrosols and phytokeratin. This would mean that a trace amount of phenoxyethanol would find its way into my products, which I didn't want. In order to solve this issue, I had to do a lot of research and get imaginative in a few cases! It took me a long time to track down a company which could supply phytokeratin with no phenoxyethanol in, and in the end I gave up trying to find aloe vera gel with no synthetic preservatives added, and instead took to ordering it in dry powdered form and then rehydrating it for use, adding plant-based preservatives myself. This actually works out as a more environmentally friendly way of shipping it in some ways, since it avoids the unnecessary weight of water being carried. 

You can read more about the reasons to avoid phenoxyethanol here: https://www.theorganicbunny.com/ingredient-to-avoid-phenoxyethanol/ 

Other resources: 
https://formulabotanica.com/checklist-natural-preservative-skincare/ 
​https://formulabotanica.com/buying-contaminated-hydrosols/