Why We Should Avoid Parabens

Parabens have been known as a no-go ingredient in skincare for decades now, so it always surprises us that they still appear in so many conventional beauty products. At Nakin we are dedicated to producing the best natural skincare products that are as kind and natural as possible to skin. So, we would never use parabens in our skincare, and we feel they are best avoided. Many experts agree on this as we discuss below.

Parabens first came into use in the last century and they had a very good purpose to safely preserve the life of skincare products. Any beauty product that contains water, like creams and gels must have a preservative within it. This is to stop the build up of microbes, which would make the product unsafe to use. Preservatives mean that our beauty products are able to have an acceptable shelf life, so we can safely use beauty products over a period of time. Nowadays there are plenty of greener alternatives to parabens, so it makes no sense to us that so many companies use parabens. However, they are being used widely.

Some of the common parabens that appear in skincare products are methylparaben, butylparaben and propylparaben. The reason that we need to avoid parabens is because they enter our systems through the skin. Elle Magazine reported on a British study on parabens, that found traces of five different types in the breast tissue of 19 out of 20 women studied. They did say that the research did not show that parabens can cause cancer, just that they can reach our deep tissue.

The Environmental Working Group, who are one of the most knowledgeable organisations on the potential issues of cosmetic ingredients, reported on paraben research by Dr Tasha Stoiber. Dr Stoiber states that the issue with parabens is that they can disrupt hormones in the body with serious consequences, and can also cause skin irritation. She agrees with us saying that they should not be used in beauty products and are not needed.

The problem is that these tiny amounts of parabens in lots of products could be contributing to a health risk for us. If we get ill, we could never pinpoint it to something like a paraben, as no-one could know if the accumulation over the years of an ingredient like a paraben was the cause. There is a lot of expert opinion about how bad parabens are for us, and so for this reason we feel they are best avoided.

To avoid using parabens take a good look at the ingredients list of every product before you purchase it. At Nakin we only produce paraben free skincare. Our range of cleansers, treatments and moisturisers offer the best anti-ageing skincare, but without harsh ingredients like parabens. It is fairly well known that we should avoid parabens, however, there are hundreds more other undesirable ingredients that appear in cosmetic products. At Nakin we avoid harsh ingredients such as synthetic cleansers, silicones, artificial colour and fragrance. Instead we fill our products with the best plant active ingredients available. To find out more about Nakin and our cruelty free skincare then visit us at www.nakinskincare.com