Can Your Favorite Hair Spray Cause Cancer?
By Kyleen, age 15, Arizona
When you think of Prom, you think of romantic hairdos, fancy dresses, gorgeous makeup, a hott date ... and cancer treatments? Many times to keep our pretty done up hair actually up, we use hair spray ... and lots of it. A popular brand we all know and use, John Frieda, has a Super Hold Hair Spray product. But what many girls who are prepping for Prom, dates, or even a wedding don't realize is that using products such as this may cause cancer. This is because certain ingredients used to make them are known or suspected carcigogens, and may affect reproductive organs in a negative way.
The ingredients in this product that are dangerous are oxybenzone, lecithin, ethanol (alcohol), and tocopheryl acetate. When shopping for your cosmetics be aware of certain listed ingredients. Steer clear of any product with ingredients that include the words paraben, toluene, dibutyl phthalate, acrylamide, and formaldehyde. These are some of the most common and health threatening ingredients used in our beauty products.
So which cosmetics are safe to use? Which hair sprays won't cause or help cause cancer? To search all your daily cosmetic products and find out which are safer for you, go to Cosmetic Database.com. You'll be able to search your favorite products and see how safe or dangerous they are, what ingredients are in them, and what dangers these may cause. The website ranks the products, including makeup and skin, eye, hair, and nail care, from 1 to10, and also color codes them. Avoid those coded red (ranked 7-10). Be cautious with yellows (3-6). The greens (0-2) are the ones that are recommended.
Get educated and spread the word. Safe cosmetics can protect your health and save lives.
