PARABENS

In recent years we have heard a lot about how toxic parabens are for our body and their ability to cause different types of cancer. Let's see what these substances are and how they really affect us.

Parabens are a family of chemical compounds used in cosmetics as preservatives, which allow us to increase the time during which we can use a cosmetic product without it being contaminated by some type of microorganism. -

Thanks to the small amount that needs to be used and how cheap it is to produce, parabens are widely used in cosmetic and personal hygiene products, and we can find them in such common products as shower gels, deodorants or hand sanitizers. creams.

These compounds have been marketed for many years without any toxic effects being attributed to them, until it was discovered through clinical trials that some of these parabens appeared concentrated in the biopsies of certain types of tumors, but to date it has not been possible to confirm that They were the cause of this disease. Furthermore, the “Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety”* has verified that they have a certain estrogenic effect, behaving like natural hormones, although with a much weaker effect than these, and can mainly affect children, who are the most vulnerable to hormonal effects. In addition, it should be added that certain studies have shown that parabens are absorbed quite well in the gastrointestinal tract and are then eliminated in the urine without much difficulty, but it turns out that when parabens are absorbed through the skin it is not so easy to eliminate them. , so they could accumulate and cause damage that is yet to be confirmed.

In the absence of more studies on their risks, in 2014 the European Union banned some of these compounds and limited the concentration that could be used in others, since the effects that less used parabens can have in the long term are unknown if they accumulate and the effects they produce when they are combined with other substances or when they are administered in different states of health.

Currently, the European Commission has restricted the total concentrations of parabens in mixtures to 8g. per kg of cosmetic product, specifying that no individual paraben can exceed 4g. /Kg., being prohibited in those products that are used for the diaper area in children under 3 years of age and without rinsing, since greater penetration can occur through the irritated area and occluded by the diaper, than through an area of ​​the intact skin.

Due to the existing scientific information and following our values, at Ombú Cosmetics we prefer to adhere to the so-called “precautionary principle” according to which precautionary measures are adopted in the event of well-founded suspicions that certain products may be a serious risk to public health and/or the environment, while there is no solid and definitive scientific evidence.

In this family of chemical compounds we can find that the most used in the world of cosmetics are: methylparaben (methylparaben), ethylparaben (ethylparaben), propylparaben (propylparaben), butylparaben (butylparaben), isobutylparaben (isobutylparaben) , isopropylparaben (isopropylparaben) and benzylparaben (benzylparaben), of which the last three are currently prohibited in the European Union according to Commission Regulation (EU) 358/2014.

The scientific opinions of the “Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety” can be found at the following web addresses: http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/consumer_safety/docs/sccs_o_041.pdf http://ec.europa .eu/health/scientific_committees/consumer_safety/docs/sccs_o_069.pdf