Aluminium in cosmetics is safer for usage: European experts

The usage of aluminium in antiperspirants, lipsticks and toothpastes in the form of concentrations which has been in consent with the limits as defined by European Regulations, is safe for human health, according to the primary standpoint adopted by the Scientific Committee for Consumer Safety (CSSC) during its comprehensive assembly on October 30^th and 31^st, 2019. The text is open for remarks until 17^th February’20.

Aluminium is considered as a systemic toxicant at high doses. This has caused numerous controversies and alarming media reports in the safety of use in cosmetics, mainly in antiperspirants. As expected, a few studies have suggested that cosmetics may be a more important source of exposure than food.

A committee assembling seventeen independent experts in chemistry and toxicology, CSSC, said in a previous opinion in 2014 that the scientific data obtainable were inadequate to assess the amount of aluminium absorbed by the human body during the use of cosmetics, though in the meantime, some new studies have been carried out.

CSSC now considered that the daily application of the cosmetics products is not a significant source of exposure of the human body to aluminium as on the recent data available. According to the committee, the skin hardly absorbs aluminium which includes freshly shaved skin and also aluminium does not get stored in the skin.