valisure citizen petition on benzene in sunscreen

Maybe it’s long been there, but people just haven’t really been looking for it. Why is benzene now being detected in different consumer products? Well, benzene in many products could be a bit like love between friends at the beginning of a rom-com. “Honey, at least I am less smelly,” would not be a reasonable tradeoff for causing cancer in your significant other down the road. Thus you may be posing a recurrent danger for both you and those around you. Anyone who walks into the bathroom, the office, the closet, or wherever you’ve groomed yourself may then inhale the persistent mist or get it in their eyes or on their skin. By contrast, a spray can end up lingering in the air long after you’ve finished making yourself less stinky. Unless you do jazz hands immediately after you apply hand sanitizer, you probably aren’t spraying the substance all around the room. This can lead to anemia and abnormal bleeding, weakening of your immune system, and leukemia, which in the words of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is “a broad term for cancers of the blood cells.”īenzene in any type of spray may be an even bigger problem than benzene in hand sanitizers. It can mess with the cells in your bone marrow. Once inside your body, benzene can be very marrow-minded. Benzene can get into your body through your mouth, nose, skin, and mucous membranes such as your eyes. Benzene is not an ingredient in any of our products, however, our testing revealed unexpected detection of benzene in some Old Spice and Secret aerosol spray antiperspirant and Old Spice Below Deck products.”Īgain, benzene may rhyme with green bean or Charlie Sheen but that doesn’t mean that you should let it near you.

So if you are using anything besides a mop or a giant cotton swab to make your armpits less sweaty, you may want to take a peak at the Valisure list to see if your product is on there.Īccording to the emailed statement from P&G, “Following recent news regarding detected benzene in many personal care aerosol spray products across the industry, we immediately began an investigation. The Valisure list included not only Old Spice and Secret products but products from other manufacturers as well. In the announcement, Valisure included a link to Valisure’s FDA Citizen Petition on Body Spray, a letter to the FDA requesting further investigation into and encouraging recalls of the products that Valisure had identified. Valisure tested a number of different body sprays for the presence of benzene.

Valisure citizen petition on benzene in sunscreen