She is clearly upset about this turn of events. On her website, she's posted an emotional open letter to her customers, excerpted in part below:
when the new [EWG]database designed to "inform" consumers about toxic ingredients in personal care hit the web, of course i was excited. i even worked with this group when it started - attending conference calls and meetings. little did i know that soon my own company would be unfairly and unjustly slandered and suffer in the hands of yet another horrendously slanted system that gives consumers only a tiny, limited, inaccurate part of the toxic picture...
when you open the page for suki for instance, the first thing you will read about us is "uses ingredients that cause cancer"...we have incredibly high standards for excellence in formulating, sourcing, packaging (we never use plastic or try to make plastics sound environmentally safe when actually none of them are)and we have always done these things and more simply because we believe in what we do.
the EWG / skindeep's rating system does not differentiate between a botanical extract that is clean (meaning does not contain parabens, propylene glycol, or is extracted with the highly toxic hexane or any other means-in fact people doing the rating didn't even know when i spoke with them that ingredients can be hidden in extracts), or between regular lecithin and the lecithin we use (non-gmo, organic, food grade). there is no way to enter such a differentiation when you as a manufacturer go to enter your ingredients in the database. they do not make a distinction between organics, naturals in many cases, and/or regular, synthetic ingredients, not to mention cosmetic-grade and food-grade, nor do they care whether you use an ingredient at 100%, at 1%, or at .01% within your formulas. you get the same rating no matter how much of an ingredient you use. they do not make a distinction in the formulas submitted between micronized and non-micronized ingredients...
i, and many others even some more mainstream manufacturers, have tried repeatedly to get the EWG to respond and update the rating system so it is truly informative and helpful instead of punishing those of us who are constantly trying to do the right thing but they only respond with story after story. at first they did not respond to us at all. then they told us that they were short staffed. then they told us that they would try to fix it. then they said only after being pressed by reporters a whole new story, that if we could prove our ingredients were free from contamination (whatever that means??) they would take it under consideration and that we had been advised of this already on many occassions. it's oddly familiar and perhaps it is because the EWG has made themselves the "go-to" source for information and they do not want to lose funding? perhaps they simply do not want to admit that their system is faulty. but it makes sense to me to simply admit, "hey, it's a highly complicated job, an overwhelmingly complicated task to do this and we didn't know what we were getting into. we are working on it and it's not there yet-we're not the trusted source we will be yet." instead of grasping at research sources like the one i found recently on their site for lecithin as a respiratory toxin: they sited as their proof a german study that focused on cigarette smoking and arteriosclerosis! this was their proof that lecithin in cosmetic products caused respiratory issues? shame on them. perhaps this system is helpful in showing people the ingredients in some of the harshest products, but not when i see the harsher products getting lower ratings then products i would put on my newborn neice without hesitation. if you aren't going to truly teach the whole story about toxic ingredients or rate products based on all the parameters,you are doing nothing but continuing to confuse consumers which really upsets me the most. and, certainly it upsets me that all my hard work and the hard work of my staff is in jeopardy at the hands of a misinformed staff at EWG.
Suki Kramer goes on to say she is retaining legal counsel on this matter. Kramer is obviously upset and hurt by EWG's rating of her products, and this is understandable. I find EWG's database to be mostly helpful, but I agree that its system is imperfect. I abhor the term "scaremongering", but there are some elements of the EWG system that could be fairly labeled that way, I'm afraid. What's useful about the site is its identification of products that contain known toxins (that industry and government won't take off the shelves) such as the two big "P"'s: parabens and phthalates. But some of the other so-called toxins, which are listed as "probable" or "possible" links to cancer, cannot be indicted quite yet, and becoming overly fearful of them doesn't make sense even for those who follow the precautionary principle. What ends up happening is that companies like Suki get caught in the cross-hairs. I can't pretend to be a toxicologist or scientist, so I can't look at Suki's products and disagree with EWG's findings. But neither can EWG explain its methodology for deeming certain ingredients "toxins" or causes of cancer.
5 comments:
For a truly science-based review of cosmetics, try cosmeticscop.com. Paula Begoun does an awesome job!
the web site for cosmeticscop.com is nothing more than a front for a range of un-natural products "Paula's Choice". Sorry to tell you but Paula's products are so full of toxic chemicals that on the EWG scale they would be off the chart. Do yourself a favor and look at the truly honest brands. Suki - my competitor - is one of them and there are a handful of others as well.
Yes, I agree after having looked at the site and doing some research on Begoun. I meant to post about this earlier.
Very interesting post. In response to the comments, my problem with Begoun's work is similar to my problems with the EWG database. Both are ambitious projects, the scope of each seeming to render it somewhat impossible at times to make meaningful distinctions that are necessary to truly assess the safety of a product or its ingredients. E.g: where an ingredient is sourced from, whether the cosmetic manufacturer actually ensures a particular ingredient is free from contamination by more harmful ingredients, how much is used in formulation etc.
I do however find it unfair to say Begoun's work is a "front" to sell her products. Firstly, she undertook this project long before releasing her own products. Secondly, it was never her intention to release a line of products, but she developed them as a demand for them arose out of interest in her work. Most importantly, she still recommends many other products other than her own - it's not like she says 'my products are fantastic, all others suck'.
I also find there to be a frustratingly inconsistent logic applied by some all-"natural" ingredient proponents when they criticise the validity of Begoun's work on the basis that she sells her own products. Many sellers of natural products also publish information on their sites about ingredients to avoid, and why it is so harmful to use products containing these. One could apply the above commenter's logic to his/her own comment... could we really trust a comment from someone else selling cosmetics who is putting down Begoun? I actually don't feel that way, but my point is it's not a reasonable or fair argument to rely on, since one could just as easily apply it to ANYONE who sells their own cosmetics and also criticises other cosmetics.
There are many people, including the commenter above and Begoun, who concurrently criticise products/ingredients they find harmful, and produce an alternative they consider to be better. There are more factors than just these two things occurring together that one should use to intelligently decide whether someone criticises other products simply to increase their own sales. It does not seem so strange that someone who cares about the former (what is wrong with cosmetics) would end up doing the latter (making their own brand). There is no reason not to believe Begoun, too, is motivated to make a more reliable, safe line, just as many 'natural' cosmetic line creators are.
It seems the reason Begoun's motives are presumed sinister is that her safety standards do not live up to the standards of those who believe more natural cosmetics are safer. I happen to agree her cosmetics are not safe enough or effective enough, and believe there are compelling reasons to use more natural ingredients. However, this too quickly gets confused with what her motives are, and muddies a more valid case against her research and her product line.
My main problem with Begoun is that she's not qualified to interpret the research she comes across (and as I said earlier, the scope of her work is too large, which I believe interferes with the thoroughness of her research). It is more reasonable to criticise her on these grounds . She doesn't take into account factors like those this blog criticises - that the official scientific line is often subject to various corruptions, systemic flaws, etc. Hers is an overly conservative approach. I believe a more environmentally-conscious and health-aware outlook would make someone a better researcher in this field - someone who would ask more questions that would lead to uncovering more in-depth information.
But I don't think a dogmatic approach that arbitrarily distinguishes what is 'natural' and therefore 'good' and is fraught with hypocrisies is much better. One example is an organic cosmetic line whose online info I recently browsed. It boasted that it contained no this and no that, citing the ingredient had not been assessed for safe use in cosmetics, as per the EWG site. But looking up many of the herbal ingredients they do use, their EWG's entries were exactly the same. I find this unacceptably dishonest and unfortunately not uncommon.
One thing I appreciate about Begoun's work is pointing out such hypocrisies. But I do think there are intrinsic flaws in both approaches (Begoun's and the dogmatically 'natural' one).
I'm hoping one day an organisation will come up with a better approach to assessing cosmetic ingredient safety.
I have my own line of skin care, and I have to agree with Suki on the issues I have with EWG also. I respect the work they do, but disagree on fair scoring of products. I wrote them a letter asking to clarify once and for all, (the formula) why products with massive amount of toxic ingredients seem to score lower then they deserve, as if they try to make them look better, and the most natural and organic products, like mine, seem to get the highest score that the product's individual ingredients do. They replied to me with "explanation" but it was soooo "foggy" that I am still confused. What I will suggest to consumers is not to look at overall score but check each ingredient of that product separately. Looking at that, it becomes much more clear what product is better even if their overall scores are the same.
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