Part 3 of the Series: FDA Doesn’t Regulate Shampoos & Conditioners – Dioxane
It’s surprising, isn’t it? Most people assume the FDA—or at least some federal agency—keeps a close eye on the safety of cosmetics and personal‑care products. Unfortunately, that simply isn’t the case. Even when the FDA does step in, it often focuses more on policing harmless claims—like when they threatened General Mills for stating that oats lower cholesterol—than on addressing truly unsafe ingredients. They even warned they would classify Cheerios as an unapproved drug if the company didn’t stop making that claim.
Meanwhile, other parts of the world take consumer safety far more seriously. The EU, Canada, Japan, and other health‑conscious markets have stricter regulations and ban far more chemicals than the United States. It can make you feel like American consumers are being used as guinea pigs.
As I mentioned in earlier posts, my research into how nutrition affects overall health opened my eyes to the broader issue of weak safety oversight in personal‑care products. You’ve already seen the first two common chemicals found in shampoos and conditioners. Now let’s take a look at the next one.
Dioxane: A Known Carcinogen Still in Everyday Products
Dioxane is a toxic chemical identified as one of more than 200 carcinogens linked to breast cancer in a 2007 report published in the medical journal Cancer. Even more concerning, its connection to cancer was first reported back in 1965—yet it continues to appear in personal‑care products used by both adults and children.
In 1985, the FDA requested a voluntary limit of 10 parts per million for dioxane in these products. Decades later, that limit still hasn’t been implemented.
A Final Reminder
Your skin cannot protect you from these toxins. It is not a barrier to entry—medical patches have proven for years that substances applied to the skin can enter the bloodstream. The chemicals in your shampoo and conditioner may even be more harmful than those in your food because they bypass the digestive system entirely.