What a proposed cosmetic ingredients ban could mean for your beauty products

The University of Cincinnati's Kelly Dobos was featured in an Allure article discussing how a proposed New York bill prohibiting the sale of items with specific ingredients could affect the cosmetic products you buy.

If passed, the "Beauty Justice Act" would target products including ingredients such as parabens, formaldehyde and a specific pigment, called carbon black, often used in mascara and eyeliner. Dobos said most of the ingredients listed in the bill are not added to modern cosmetics or are currently being phased out.

“Nobody's putting cadmium in a cosmetic for fun,” said Dobos, a cosmetic chemist and adjunct instructor in UC's Cosmetic Science Program in the James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy. “The last thing we want to do is hurt our customers.”

Dobos said the inclusion of carbon black stood out, as it is a "certifiable" color category that means "every lot made has to go to the FDA laboratories for testing against a list of specifications."

“[Including] carbon black… seems misguided and is problematic for sure," she said. “There's nothing that will really get you to that same color space. Black iron oxide can skew a little more red or brown, and it behaves differently in a product.”

Read the Allure article.

Featured photo at top of mascara being applied to eyebrows. Photo/DenisKomarov/iStock Photo.