Industrial Uses: Manufacturing of glues and resins and as a chemical intermediate. Urea-formaldehyde and phenolformaldehyde resins are used in foam insulations, as adhesives in the production of particle board and plywood, and in the treating of textiles.
Personal Care Products: Preservative in cosmetics, nail polish, vaccines and embalming bodies. It is common to find formaldehyde in aqueous cosmetic formulations such as shampoo, conditioner, shower gels, liquid hand wash and bubble bath. Even products designed for children such as bubble bath and baby shampoo have formaldehyde in them.
Purpose: Preservative and Sterilizer
Formaldehyde causes cancer in test animals. Some studies suggested that formaldehyde exposure could cause cancer of the lungs, sinuses, and nose in humans. Cal/OSHA and Cal/EPA regulate formaldehyde as a carcinogen.
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Formaldehyde can cause watery eyes, burning sensations in the eyes, throat, nausea, and difficulty in breathing in some humans exposed at elevated levels (above 0.1 parts per million). High concentrations of formaldehyde may trigger asthma attacks in susceptible people. There is evidence that some people can develop sensitivity to formaldehyde. It has also been shown to cause cancer in animals and is a known carcinogen. Health effects from exposure to formaldehyde include, eye, nose, and throat irritation; wheezing and coughing; fatigue; skin rash; severe allergic reactions.
Formaldehyde is a cancer suspect and is banned from cosmetics and toiletries in both Sweden and Japan. Recently, however, Japan is beginning to bow to pressure from Western nations to relax this ban and accept exports from the West.
The safety of formaldehyde was reviewed in 1984, by a panel of scientific experts commissioned by the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association (CTFA), a trade association representing the cosmetics industry. They concluded that there was insufficient data to show that cosmetics containing more than 0.2 percent of formaldehyde were safe. A different body, the European Union’s (EU’s) Scientific Committee on Cosmetics, decided that formaldehyde was safe if used “at low levels”. As a result, cosmetics and toiletries sold within the EU may contain formaldehyde as a preservative but, with restrictions to its use.
However, these restrictions only apply where formaldehyde is used as a preservative. Formaldehyde can also be added to antibacterial (antiseptic) hand wash to kill microbes on your hands, and it is an important ingredient in some types nail hardeners. EU regulations allow up to 5 percent of formaldehyde in nail hardeners (that’s 25 times more than the CTFA’s safe level) and there are no specific regulations concerning its use as an antibacterial. If a nail hardener contains more than 0.05 percent of formaldehyde the label must clearly display the following warnings: “Contains Formaldehyde” and “Protect cuticles with grease or oil.” But these warnings are not required on shampoo, shower gel or family bubble bath, all of which can legally contain four times as much formaldehyde. Why have the regulating authorities decided that 0.05 percent of formaldehyde in nail hardeners is sufficiently dangerous to warrant specific warnings while more than four times as much in antimicrobial hand wash is safe? Why not set a standard safety level for all products?
The answer is that there would be no point. Manufacturers are only required to list those ingredients that are added intentionally. They do not have to list any ingredients that are not intended to be part of the product. For example, they do not have to list any of the solvents they use to add fragrance chemicals. Nor do they have to list any impurities such as pesticide residues, any chemical contaminants introduced during the manufacture of the ingredients or any chemicals, such as formaldehyde, that were used to preserve the ingredients before they were used to make the cosmetic or toiletry.
In a Danish study of 285 shampoos, nearly 30 percent of them were found to contain formaldehyde but none of them listed it as an ingredient. The reason for this was the formaldehyde was present as an unintentional contaminant, because the raw materials used in the cosmetics had been preserved with it.
Perhaps the informed consumer should demand that cosmetics and toiletries carry labels that say, “Analysis shows that this product contains no formaldehyde.”
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