Why toxic chemicals are vital in makeup products

Despite the growing popularity of “clean” beauty products, industry veterans say terms like “natural” and “organic” are unregulated and often meaningless. Here’s why that’s the case.

Experts and industry veterans say the muddy reality of the billion-dollar clean beauty movement —which drove a 27 percent increase in skincare alone this year — is that terms like “natural” and “organic” are essentially meaningless and unregulated; and the much-hyped health risks of several chemical ingredients are based on questionable data.

“There is kind of a chemophobia in the U.S. — if it's a chemical, a man-made chemical, it must be bad," said Curtis Klaassen, former president of the Society of Toxicology and chair of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics at the Kansas University Medical Center.

When news breaks, we break it down for you.

#JustTheFAQs