Cancer-Causing Chemicals Are in Many Beauty Products Women Use, a Study Finds

More than half of Black and Latina women in Los Angeles who participated in a new study regularly used personal-care products containing a known carcinogen.

Study participants photographed the ingredient lists of all the products they used at home over the course of a week. The journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters published the study Wednesday.

Of 64 women, researchers found that 53% reported using soap, lotion, shampoo, conditioner, skin lightener, eyeliner, eyelash glue and other beauty products that contained formaldehyde and formaldehyde-releasing preservatives — toxins found to cause cancer in humans.

“It’s really concerning that we are intentionally putting chemicals that release a carcinogen into our products that we apply to ourselves every day,” said lead author Robin Dodson, associate director of research at Silent Spring Institute, a Massachusetts nonprofit studying environmental causes of breast cancer.