First tobacco. Now: dangerous chemicals in personal care products. CVS announced they’ll pull products in its own cosmetics line that contain parabens, phthalates and formaldehyde. The US lags far behind Europe in this consumer safety movement where upwards of 1300 chemicals have been banned for consumer use. In the US, that figure is more like 11. Next up? Potentially Target and Walmart.
Consumer and environmental organizations have been pressuring manufacturers for years to remove certain ingredients from their personal care products. Ingredients like parabens, phthalates and various formulations of formaldehyde are often used in cosmetics and are now considered suspected carcinogens and endocrine disruptors.
Last week consumer advocates received the clearest sign yet that their efforts are making a difference. CVS , which owns and operates some 9,700 pharmacies across the country announced on Wednesday that it would be pulling those products in its own line of cosmetics that contain those three chemical substances and “will stop shipping store brand products that don’t meet these standards to distribution centers by the end of 2019.”
CVS manufactures four product lines that it said will be affected by the change: CVS Health, Beauty 360, Essence of Beauty, and Blade. The company’s Promise Organic is prohibited by federal law from containing synthetic ingredients already and won’t be affected.