‍

The word "clean" on your shampoo bottle means exactly nothing — legally, anyway. The U.S. has taken so long to update regulations that it's created a huge gap between what consumers want — products without toxic chemicals — and what the government regulates. This means only a small portion of toxic chemicals used in manufacturing are actually regulated at a national level. Folks like advocate and author Lindsay Dahl have been working for decades to close this gap, passing dozens of laws in the process. But the regulatory gap has left space for a "clean" industry to emerge, and rack up lots of cash. The "clean" beauty industry alone is worth $7 billion.

‍

In this episode, we talk to Lindsay Dahl about how we've gone this far without adequate toxicity regulation and how to shop smarter, we hear how big beauty brands have pushed back against regulation, we find out how to use our voices for federal-level change, and we hear how our community is navigating this tricky landscape.

‍

If you want to get involved with any of the orgs Lindsay mentions in this episode, you can find some here, and the full list is in her book, Cleaning House.

‍

• Toxic Free Future
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• Environmental Defense Fund
• Environmental Working Group
• Saferstates.org

‍

If you want to check out any of the orgs Lindsay mentioned, you can find some here, and the full list is in her book, Cleaning House:

‍

Episode Credits

• Listener contributions: Anna, Darice Chang, Nyiah, Kayla Joy , Sawyer, Grace Hebert, Dom Altomari
• Research: Makenna McBrierty
• Editing and engineering: Evan Goodchild‍
• Hosting and production: Katelan Cunningham

‍

Episode Transcript

‍

Katelan Cunningham (00:00):

Welcome back to Second Nature, a podcast from Commons. If you wanna see how sustainable your shopping is or if you wanna find out how sustainable a product is before you buy it, commons is the app for you. Just connect your card and within minutes you can start analyzing your spending, see your sustainability score, and even get rewards for better choices. And here on this show, we've talked to people about how they're living sustainably in an unsustainable world.

Katelan Cunningham (00:36):

I think most people have found themselves at least once, standing in the middle of a store aisle, a product in each hand, and you're reading those ingredients labels like you're gonna get tested on them, you got your phone out, you're Googling ingredients to find out what's good, what's bad. You're researching the brand maybe on the Commons app to find out what it's all about. And if you can trust it and before you know it, 10 minutes have gone by and you haven't even picked a shampoo. When we have the time and money to choose more sustainable or less toxic options, we try to take it in the commons community. We see that personal care and cleaning are two categories where people were most likely to make a sustainable purchase. But being a mindful consumer who cares even a little bit about the safety and sustainability of ingredients in what you buy, it can be exhausting. And sometimes you feel like you're just stuck buying the least bad thing, which isn't a great feeling. I'm your host, Kaitlyn Cunningham, and on today's episode we're talking toxic chemicals, how they affect our bodies and the planet, and what's getting in the way of keeping them out of our products for good. Here we go.

Katelan Cunningham (01:49):

Regulation has the power to quickly and drastically improve the health of us humans and the environments we're a part of. And this isn't theoretical or utopian, it's been proven time and time again. For example, there used to be lead and gasoline until there wasn't. In 1973, the EPA mandated a phased in reduction of lead in all grades of gasoline. And at that time, over 200,000 tons of lead was being used in gasoline every year. So that lead was ending up in the air, in the dirt, in the dust. This is not great because lead in the air can cause permanent nerve damage, anemia and cognitive harm in children. On top of that, lead pollution in the air also permeated soil, which is pretty foundational to most life on earth. So that disrupted wildlife population, soil microbial communities, pollinators and aquatic ecosystems. But by 1996, a full ban on leaded fuel for on-road vehicles went into effect. And in that time span, blood levels of lead in children went down 70%.

Katelan Cunningham (03:01):

There used to be BPA and baby bottles until there wasn't. BPA is bissol A. It's a chemical use to make plastics. And in 2012, the FDA banned the use of BPA and baby bottles and children's sippy cups. Later in 2013, that ban extended to infant formula packaging as well. Before these bans BPA was being detected in the urine of more than 93% of urine samples in the US. BPA can seep into food and when it does, it has health effects on the brain and prostate gland of fetuses and infants and children. And when it leaves our human bodies, it shows up in wastewater causing endocrine disruption in fish amphibians and aquatic invertebrates. A-U-S-G-S study found that fish exposed to BPA passed adverse reproductive effects onto their offspring for up to three generations.

Katelan Cunningham (03:54):

There used to be CFCs in aerosol sprays until there wasn't CFCs. That's chlorofluorocarbons can be found in old refrigerants and old insulation. And they used to be used in aerosol sprays like deodorants, hairsprays and household cleaners. That isn't till 1978 when the F-D-A-E-P-A and Consumer Product Safety Commission all banned CFCs as propellants in most aerosol products. Then the international community signed on to phase out CFCs by 1996. Before that we were releasing about 448 million pounds of CSCs from aerosols alone every single year. Now it's down by 99%. That's wild. These CFCs were a big problem because they were creating a hole in the ozone layer. You may have heard of it. That hole in the ozone layer was increasing our exposure to UV radiation, which can increase the rate of things like skin cancer and cataracts. The effects were even felt in the ocean where UV rays were causing damage to phytoplankton those microscopic organisms at the base of the entire food chain. So kind of critical, but now because of this regulation, the ozone layer is well on the mend my friends, these are stories of progress. While we can't rely on many companies to consistently, reliably and transparently keep dangerous chemicals out of products, industry-wide regulations like bees can drive big changes in a relatively short amount of time. And these regulations didn't happen easily or out of pure goodwill. They required hard work and diligence from scientists, citizens, and people in government. Of course, folks out there are still fighting for a lot more regulations and in the meantime, consumers are left holding the bag

Katelan Cunningham (05:49):

In our earnest quest to avoid the bad stuff. There's been more and more interest in choosing quote unquote clean products, especially when it comes to stuff that goes on our skin, in our hair and in the air. The tricky part is clean is not a standardized term and it doesn't have any legal expectations. So companies can use it with little context and we are left to fill in the gaps with our own definitions.

Darice Chang (06:22):

I remember being little and like when we had dance recitals and stuff, I would hate it 'cause they would put makeup on me and I would feel sick, like physically ill. So I guess for me, clean beauty is like anything that doesn't make me sick. <laugh>,

Darice Chang (06:37):

Which is probably a narrower definition than like what Sephora has.

Nyiah Moore (06:44):

To me, clean beauty is any natural product that can be consumed. If whatever I'm putting on my skin is not something I would put in my body, then why am I using it? Some people may view that as extreme, but I like to keep things simple.

Dom Altomari (07:03):

Clean ingredients are important to me, but I try to hold that with a lot of nuance. Uh, my definition of clean is definitely less about whether something sounds clean or greenwashed or scary on a label and more about what is the ecological footprint of the ingredients that make up this product. Who grew it under what conditions did they grow it? Is this product causing harm further up the supply chain?

Sawyer Stone (07:31):

If there's a list of 50 ingredients in a product, I have a very hard time digesting that and understanding that that might be something that I should put on my skin.

Kayla Joy (07:40):

The best clean beauty products are those that connect us back to traditional ancestral knowledge while incorporating the best of modern science. Living in Antigua with my husband has taught me that many traditional ways of personal care exists long before marketing teams discovered clean beauty.

Anna Kempf (08:01):

And so I think there's this misconception around what clean means. 'cause clean could mean different things for different people.

Dom Altomari (08:12):

I do come from a science background, so I'm a little skeptical of like vague wellness marketing that just slaps the word natural on something and calls it a day. Like arsenic is natural, right? <laugh>, it doesn't mean that it's good for you.

Nyiah Moore (08:26):

I don't trust the clean labels because it's just an advertisement. Seeds, fruits, herbs and plants don't have a label and are not trying to sell me anything. So that's what I trust. Something that's straight from the ground that's for me already.

Grace Hebert (08:43):

We have put our trust into companies for a long time with the assumption that they're creating products that are safe and high quality. Yet we have seen time and time again that they are not from asbestos and Johnson and Johnson baby powder to the pesticide DDT to let a gasoline to pfas in non-stick pans. They continue to cut corners, reduce quality, and use untested chemicals. It is only now that people are rightfully starting to look at the ingredient label and questioning what the purpose of each ingredient is.

Kayla Joy (09:13):

I've been on a journey with clean beauty for the last year. I've thrown away all of my plugins. I've switched over all my perfumes and given away the ones that I absolutely adore and love.

Anna Kempf (09:25):

Part of it is holding companies accountable, but there is a individual responsibility to do your research as well. And I think our society is shifting towards being able to balance both, not just the corporate responsibility but the individual responsibility as well. But I think it's misleading to say that we can just pick a toxic ingredient, something that we have, um, new findings on, something that is incomplete in its research and just automatically assume that that's toxic. Um, for everybody

Sawyer Stone (09:59):

I know being based in the US we have different standards than elsewhere. Like the UK has really rigid standards. And so most of my beauty products mascara, eyebrow, uh, tinted moisturizer are all from a UK company because I know that their practices for eco-friendliness and cleanliness are higher than ours here in the States, which is why food and drink and Kit Kats and soda all taste different in the UK and the eu.

Grace Hebert (10:30):

When I think about toxicity, I think about how consistent small exposure over the course of your lifetime can lead to terrible illnesses in older age. And I think the small amount of convenience I get from these products is not worth getting. Cancer

Dom Altomari (10:43):

Toxicity is a very important factor. It matters to me. It should matter I think to all of us. Um, but context is everything. So dose exposure, bioaccumulation, I think that pesticide residues, endocrine disruptors, things with real ecological and human health data behind them are something that we should all be thinking about and considering when choosing what products we're eating. Um, I try really hard not to get swept up in fear-based marketing that hasn't really been peer reviewed. I'm looking at receipts. I'm very objective about what I'm looking at. What does the data say?

Sawyer Stone (11:24):

I definitely consider clean ingredients a part of my sustainability practice. I think about that in food. I think about that in beauty. I think about that in body wash. I think about that in fabrics that I wear or fabrics that I've purchased for a couch or a bedding. I definitely think that clean ingredients play a huge part of sustainability because that is still finding its way back to the earth in the dirt because of our sweat and we fall in the ground in the water because of our sunscreen in the ocean. It's just impacting everything.

Katelan Cunningham (12:06):

Most of us are out here trying our best. We're trying to do our research and be as diligent as time allows about the kinds of ingredients we use on our bodies and our homes. But maybe you're like me and maybe you're burnt out and you're wondering why is this my job? The thing is, it's not your job. Well, it's not just your job. There are lots of people out here trying to make these products safer for us, I promise. And one of those people is Lindsay Dahl. Lindsay Dahl is the Chief impact officer at Ritual and a 20 year environmental health advocate. She was the deputy director of Safer Chemicals Healthy Families Coalition. In addition to leading state policy work on toxic chemical pollution in Minnesota over her impressive career, she has helped pass over 30 state and federal laws on toxic chemicals in consumer products. And she's the author of a book I highly recommend called Cleaning House, the Fight to Rid Our Homes of Toxic Chemicals. Hey Lindsay, thanks for coming on the show.

Lindsay Dahl (13:12):

Thanks for having me.

Katelan Cunningham (13:13):

Every time I see news that a product I've been using forever has PFAS in it or something, I find myself googling the label, trying to understand what I can trust. And honestly doing all this research makes me kind of resentful. Like I can appreciate this sort of doing your own research angle of things. And I know that it's super crucial for us to hold companies accountable, but I'm just kind of wondering like, why is this my job? Shouldn't I be able to buy anything at the store and trust that it's not going to actively harm me? Is it naive for me to think that everything at the store should be <laugh> okay for me to consume and have in my life?

Lindsay Dahl (13:48):

It's not naive at all. I think your resentment is also well placed, which is we've asked consumers to be their own federal agencies without the time, the training, the expertise, the resources to do so. And it's totally unacceptable. And I think if you think about the issue of toxic chemical pollution, whether it's in our products, in our home or in our drinking water, our food, the air we breathe, at the end of the day, the companies who are responsible for that pollution should be responsible for both the cleanup after the math or making sure that things like chemicals are safe long before they enter our consumer products. So I think there's an incredible power of mirroring the power of the consumer marketplace. As you at Commons know really well, consumer power really does drive and change the narrative. However, with things that are really complicated, like removing toxic chemicals from consumer products, I think the biggest part of the solution actually doesn't fall on our shoulders and it should fall in our state, federal and international governments to turn the tap off from these toxic chemicals and not use them in the first place.

Lindsay Dahl (14:55):

And so it's not out of line for you to ask for that because think about things like lead in household paint or lead in gas. Those are two great examples of interventions that we took or banning smoking on airplanes. Again, these are different forms of pollution that you don't even think twice about it, right? When you're going to a gas pump, but you don't have to think about lead. Obviously there's other concerns. I'm not saying that gas is clean by any stretch of the imagination, but the point is, is a lot of these types of laws when they're passed, you just don't even have to think about them, which is exactly the way that it should be.

Katelan Cunningham (15:28):

When we are having to do our own research, it often means that we're essentially comparing materials, ingredients and ingredients against what we know to be good and bad. But one of the problems as you just mentioned is like I don't have all the research. I'm not an expert. And so I often will hear these sort of guidelines that people follow. Like if I can't eat it, it's bad. So if it's a skincare product that I can't eat, it's bad, or if I can't pronounce the ingredients it's bad. Or if there are too many ingredients, it's bad. And I wondered how you thought about these kind of proliferated guidelines. We hear a lot and and maybe what are the guidelines that you go by when you're doing your own research?

Lindsay Dahl (16:06):

A lot of those guidelines come from Michael Pollan's Food Rules, which is really, it was a shift to try to get us to think about cooking more and eating more whole foods. So within that context, I think there are great, you know, um, things to abide by. The problem is is that people have taken those food rules and they've applied it to consumer goods and to the issue of toxic chemicals and consumer products, which is not backed by any of the science. So it's confusing, right? Very.

Katelan Cunningham (16:35):

Yeah,

Lindsay Dahl (16:35):

Everything you mentioned, like if there's an ingredient name you can't pronounce it, um, it actually has no bearing on the safety based on the different types of like in the beauty and personal care space. For example, most companies use Inky, which is an internationalized standardized way of using ingredients. Mm-hmm <affirmative> shea butter is not gonna read like shea butter on the ingredient list if you're using inky determination. So this is all to say those really well intended guidelines do not apply. And what I urge people instead is to think about um, there's a few credible certifications that help kind of do the scientific homework for you. So yeah, in beauty and personal care, I like EWG verified, um, as a certification made safe certified covers a lot of different product categories. So think of mattresses, household cleaners, things like that. Beauty and personal care. Okay. Clean label project, um, is a good signal of safety when you're thinking about protein powders and supplements.

Lindsay Dahl (17:31):

Those three certifications alone are gonna really help cover a lot of consumer good bases and take some of the pressure off of your shoulders from having to define what is safe and what is not. Because as we've seen with some of these online debates, even the scientific community can debate these things. At the end of the day, just because something's natural doesn't mean it's safe. Something just because something's synthetic doesn't mean it's unsafe. What we really need to look at is what does a peer reviewed science say about our exposure to different chemicals regardless of their source and some of these different health endpoints like harming the brain cancer, persistence in our environment and those different types of scientific criteria.

Katelan Cunningham (18:12):

No, that's a really nice reminder and I love having some certifications to go to. It's like a shortcut a little bit where you're kind of just looking for that mark and then you're like, okay, I'm good.

Lindsay Dahl (18:21):

Yep.

Katelan Cunningham (18:21):

In recent years a lot of companies have aligned their selection of ingredients with the UK as like a higher standard of ingredient selection. We see this a lot often in the personal care industry and this is what really made me start to sort of pay attention to the regulations and the difference between what we do in the US and what we do in the uk. And I came across a writeup that you did on the Toxic Substance Control Act, which I had never heard of before and right now it's at risk. And so I wondered how do you think about how we stand as the US when it comes to regulations against other countries and then what's at stake with the TSCA?

Lindsay Dahl (18:55):

The United States is far behind international governments when it comes to managing the safety of chemicals before they get into our consumer products and onto the marketplace. So if you think of the primary most important law in the United States, it is tosca the Toxic Substances Control Act, an effort that took 10 years from people from all across um, the United States. We updated TOSCA in 2016. The law was so weak that the EPA couldn't ban things like asbestos because under the criteria of the law couldn't prove that asbestos was harmful enough. Which is just wild to think of, right? So yeah, we made some significant updates to the law in 2016. It allowed the EPA to take some pretty great actions in the last few years. If you think about bans on things like TCE perk, it's a dry cleaning chemical, PFAS and drinking water, some of those movements all happened under this new tosca. Right. Gotcha.

Lindsay Dahl (19:51):

Even still with that, the European Union in particular under the reach directive is still light years ahead of where we are in the United States. Geez. So what this means, um, 'cause right now there's a proposal to roll back Tosca again, send us back to the 1970s <laugh>. At the end of the day, what we need is to at least protect the consumer safety laws that we do have on the books right now here in the United States. But even still, once we get past this playing defense mode, we need to still continue to pass federal laws that help protect us from toxic chemical pollution. Um, and it's not just through tosca. There's a lot of different ways to do that. So we helped pass a big update to cosmetic safety back in the um, beginning of 2023 for example. It was the first time our federal laws have been updated in over 80 years on cosmetic safety.

Katelan Cunningham (20:39):

Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Lindsay Dahl (20:41):

There's still so much for us to do to make sure that ingredients that are harmful are not in beauty products. So I, I think at right now we're kind of like in a firefighting mode, I need everyone to pick up the phone. I don't care which political party you, you align with and try to maintain no, no more rollbacks to our existing toxic chemical laws. And then once we hopefully <laugh> stabilize our existing legislative and um, the laws that we have on the books, then we really need to push forward um, to more precautionary types of laws like we see in the European Union.

Katelan Cunningham (21:12):

I wanna follow up by asking, you know, a lot of people, especially in the US have elections coming up. Is this something we should have in mind? What should we be looking for in candidates that are going to keep the tosca in place in the way that it is now and hopefully improve it over time?

Lindsay Dahl (21:26):

Yeah, great question. Absolutely. Um, this is um, the issue of toxic chemical pollution is going to be an important topic for the midterm elections and there's a couple things you can do. First, if you have races or people that are new to running for a seat, you should ask them how would you vote for or would you stand up for regulating the chemical industry and removing toxic chemicals from consumer products? So ask them the question where when they're on the campaign trail and if you have people that are in office that are gonna be up for reelection, like the house of Representatives at the federal level every two years is up for reelection, check out their voting records or send them an email and say, Hey, I wanna know how you're voting on these topics. Because the more pressure they feel during an election cycle, it really shapes once they're either back in office or they're in office for the first time, it really shapes how they vote on these issues because they know, oh, this was a big enough issue for people to ask me while I was campaigning. So those kind of top tier issues that come up really have a lasting impression on candidates. And then eventually when they become our elected officials,

Katelan Cunningham (22:33):

I know this might feel a little bit off track for some people it's like, I'm just trying to like live my life, but when you think the next time you're reading the label at the store and you're agonizing over being over like why is this my job? Those moments where you're able to call your elected re representatives or the people running, those are the things that can make it to where you're not having to read those labels as much anymore. So it can save time down the line to take a few minutes to do something like that.

Lindsay Dahl (22:59):

Exactly.

Katelan Cunningham (23:00):

Working in the sustainability space, I feel like every week I'm learning some new information that helps me navigate the world, navigate the things that I buy. But it can be a little overwhelming if I'm honest. And I, I read your book and and it's overwhelming for you too and you know so much more than I do. So I feel like the overwhelms probably even bigger <laugh>. So how do you balance it? How do you balance what we're just talking about? How do you balance staying motivated to take these sort of bigger actions at higher at government levels while also you know, reading the labels for you and your kids before you buy certain products? How do you think about those two things? The big picture and the small picture? Sort of,

Lindsay Dahl (23:35):

I spend 70% of my energy focusing on the big picture and 30% of my time focusing on individual consumer choices for me and my family.

Katelan Cunningham (23:44):

Gotcha.

Lindsay Dahl (23:45):

So that keeps me from avoiding a state of burnout. I've been doing this for 20 years and if anything the like information overload and the nature of the science has gotten more depressing and more overwhelming. Yeah. And I haven't burnt myself out because I'm consistently focusing on the largest systemic changes that I can be a part of. I also get the benefit, which is also why I wrote my book Cleaning House, to have passed so many state and federal laws that have really transformed and help remove our exposure to certain toxic chemicals. So that gives me a lot of energy because I get to see firsthand that our voices still matter. Grassroots action still matters. Picking up the phone to call your um, members of Congress, people think it doesn't matter, I guarantee I can tell you it does. As the lobbyist on the other side of the conversation engaging with those congressional offices, the more calls they get, the more engaged they are with people like me trying to help pass these laws that are gonna protect our health and in the environment.

Lindsay Dahl (24:49):

So that's what keeps me energized and keeps me away from that feeling of overwhelm is really just like keeping my eye on the biggest prize with the biggest solutions and the biggest rocks. I've done this for long enough now that I know that being really patient you can't expect change, um, to happen overnight. And so some cases, like I gave that example before, whether it was updating Tosca or the work we did on clean beauty legislation, those took 10 and nine years respectively. And you don't have to have a 10 year fight in you as an individual. That's my job 'cause I get paid to do that. But following the right organizations and the right people that will mobilize you at key moments in time, like right now it's like everyone's mobilizing around Tosca. Having your kind of finger on the pulse of who your organizations that are you're following, I think will help kinda protect people's brain space as well.

Katelan Cunningham (25:41):

Yeah. How do you go about finding those organizations? We had someone on from Moms Clean Air Force last season, so I know that that's one. Um, are there national organizations that come to mind for you or is there like a directory? Can we Google something? How do we find these groups that are important to us?

Lindsay Dahl (25:55):

I have a long list in the back of my book for people that are interested, but I'll give you a few today. The first of which is Toxic Free Future, they work at both a state and federal level. Um, they're really leading the charge to help protect Tosca. The other organization I would say is Natural Resources Defense Council, environmental Defense Fund, environmental Working Group. They're all really solid players in this space. And then, um, safer states.org is where you can find state by state what's happening and they connect you to local organizations. So whether you're in Kansas, Minnesota, Florida, wherever really following and getting engaged in those state fights. 'cause that's where a lot of the great action happening.

Katelan Cunningham (26:36):

Perfect. That's so helpful. I wanted to end on, you spoke at or summit our event during S of Climate week and you said this thing which has just stuck with me, I think about it all the time, which is that social media is the most toxic thing in our homes and I wondered if you could explain that for us.

Lindsay Dahl (26:53):

Yeah. You know, I wrote a book about toxic chemical pollution, but I end up talking about social media most of the time because the age of influencers has completely reshaped how we take in information, what we consider to be credible news. And it's changed our consumer and political behavior in ways that I find mostly detrimental. So if you just look at the field that I work in, which is environmental health, um, on one end of the pendulum you've got people I call the perfectionist people that get obsessed with this issue. Sometimes they misstate information, overstate the science, it gets into pseudoscience territory and they make everyone feel bad. Hmm. And then the pendulum has swung to the other side where you've got these so-called science communicators that are like, oh, any of that stuff about pesticides or toxic chemicals, that's all pseudoscience like, don't even listen to that.

Lindsay Dahl (27:42):

Nothing to worry about. Both of those perspectives are really unhealthy and they're damaging the consumer sentiment around this issue that has always enjoyed a really strong bipartisan base. And so it's like now things are really politicized. If you talk about this, people call you Maha, they put you in a box. This has been dating back to the 1960s. One of the strongest consistent women-led bipartisan movements working to address toxic chemical pollution. And I don't want that to change sign up for some of these organizations for their email lists. If you see an influencer or follow an influencer on social media that's walking down grocery aisle saying buy this, not that like unfollow all of those accounts. Like they're not experts, like they're not scientists, they're not people like me that have been doing this professionally for decades. Social media has completely warped our overall sense of place in the world and the power of our voices within our democracy. So my number one tip is to reduce your time on social media <laugh>, um, long before you try to find any sort of safe shopping list

Katelan Cunningham (28:47):

And maybe spend that time calling your elected officials. I never see those accounts going in the grocery store aisles are never asking you to do that stuff <laugh>. So we never, if we take the 70 30 rule that you have and apply it to <laugh> to our lives. Exactly. I feel like we should definitely spend less time on social media and more time doing the work that's gonna add up in the long run.

Lindsay Dahl (29:05):

Exactly.

Katelan Cunningham (29:06):

Thank you so much for your decades and decades of work <laugh> and for taking the time today on the show. I really appreciate it.

Lindsay Dahl (29:12):

Oh, I'm a huge fan of Commons and all that you do, so thanks for having me on. Thanks.

Katelan Cunningham (29:24):

Perhaps you found yourself looking for sustainable or non-toxic swaps to your personal care or cleaning products and you find yourself wondering why some of them cost more money. I know I have. So I called up commons founders, Sanchali Seth Pal, to follow the money at play in this growing sector. Sanchali, we have just heard about how far behind the US is when it comes to managing the safety of certain chemicals before they end up in our products. And despite this lag or this gap, there are plenty of products out there claiming to be quote unquote clean. So I wanted to follow the money of this clean industry.

Sanchali Seth Pal (30:05):

Oh, and it's a lot of money <laugh>. In fact, clean beauty in particular is like its own whole sub-industry with a global market valued at over $7 billion and it's projected to nearly double by the end of the decade.

Katelan Cunningham (30:19):

That's staggering. And there's not even a legally binding definition of the word clean

Sanchali Seth Pal (30:25):

For sure. Any brand can use the word clean or natural or safe without meeting any certain set of standards. In fact, brands started using these words because they know their attributes consumers are looking for and there's basically no regulation. So it was a huge marketing opportunity.

Katelan Cunningham (30:41):

It seems like the more consumers are losing trust in the safety of products, the more we look for safety in these unregulated terms. Unfortunately.

Sanchali Seth Pal (30:50):

And it doesn't mean that every brand using these terms is bad or has ill intentions, but what does happen is each brand comes up with its own set of rules. You see this all the time in the beauty industry, Sephora, Ulta, goop, target, they each have their own list of criteria around what they deem as clean and each list is different and self enforced.

Katelan Cunningham (31:13):

Do you think brands are charging more for products that they market as clean?

Sanchali Seth Pal (31:17):

They can for sure. We see this reflected in our own data at Commons. When we look at beauty retailers specifically. So in the Commons community, the average cost per purchase at Alta in 2025 was $63. At Sephora it was $78. And at Credo, which is a more sustainable beauty retailer with a larger selection of clean products, the average order size was $95.

Katelan Cunningham (31:41):

Do you think this is just a marketing-y clean beauty upcharge?

Sanchali Seth Pal (31:45):

I mean we can't really know, right? It's totally possible. Pricing is ultimately a function of demand, not just cost.

Katelan Cunningham (31:53):

Is it really more expensive to produce a less toxic or quote unquote clean product

Sanchali Seth Pal (31:59):

In some ways? Yeah. I mean brands are prioritizing certifications to communicate to consumers the work that they're doing. So some of them, Lindsay mentioned EWG verified made safe sleeping Bunny. Getting and renewing these certifications costs thousands of dollars a year so that cost can be passed on to the consumer.

Katelan Cunningham (32:16):

That makes sense. I guess are the ingredients more expensive?

Sanchali Seth Pal (32:20):

It's fair to assume that a lot of the industry's go-to ingredients are derived from fossil fuels and fossil fuel derived products are both subsidized and widely available because they're industrially produced in commons. As rubric brands score more highly when they avoid the use of petrochemical derived ingredients like parabens, phthalates and PFAS, which are derived from fossil fuels and also release high amounts of carbon emissions during their production and also when they avoid the use of uncertified palm oil and derivatives, which leads to deforestation and habitat loss. So deviating from these sort of typical ingredients that are pervasive in the industry takes diligence, rigorous sourcing, and sometimes more expensive ingredients which can add to the cost of quote unquote clean products.

Katelan Cunningham (33:05):

I wanna just pause for a second and think about how strange that is. We drill for oil, we refine it, transport it, process it, and then put it back into products and that process is cheaper than just using safer ingredients.

Sanchali Seth Pal (33:18):

Oh my gosh, we could talk about this all day. <laugh>, there is such a long history of capitalism suggesting that products that are higher in fossil fuel intensity and especially refined fossil fuels are more valuable. But that is a whole discussion for another day and a big part of the legacy we need to unwind today.

Katelan Cunningham (33:38):

I wonder if we had stricter regulations across the board in the industry, would that free up some time and resources for companies possibly making things a little cheaper?

Sanchali Seth Pal (33:49):

I think it could at least make resources easier to come by for some of these cleaner products. It would help grow the production of safer ingredients in the supply chains. And when we can help to grow those supply chains, then companies can start to see lower production costs.

Katelan Cunningham (34:04):

Let's get into regulation a little bit. What is getting in the way of the US upping our standards for chemical safety?

Sanchali Seth Pal (34:12):

There is a key trade group that is a main player here. The Personal Care Products council, also known as the PCPC, is an American Trade Association with over 600 member companies from Bath and Body Works to Chanel. This group has been lobbying against stronger federal oversight. For example, before the California Safe Cosmetics Act came to a vote in 2005, PCPC spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to kill it.

Katelan Cunningham (34:39):

But that act passed anyway, right?

Sanchali Seth Pal (34:41):

It did. It took effect January 1st, 2007 and it required cosmetics manufacturers to disclose to the California Department of Public Health, all products sold in California that contained ingredients linked to cancer, birth defects or reproductive harm. Of course that did not slow down the PCPC in 2024 alone they spent over $430,000 on federal lobbying.

Katelan Cunningham (35:09):

And this means basically they're trying to keep things the same.

Sanchali Seth Pal (35:13):

I mean like any big trade association, their goal is to have more control over their industry and keep the money flowing and that just means keeping things status quo,

Katelan Cunningham (35:22):

But still we're entering a new status quo, right? I mean in most mainstream grocery stores and drug stores, if you go down the beauty or cleaning aisle, you can at least find some options that are marketed as clean or natural.

Sanchali Seth Pal (35:36):

Absolutely. These products are increasing in availability, which is great, but now we're starting to see the issue shift from availability to affordability and now it's becoming an equity issue. In 2025, a study from Columbia and Rutgers found that black women, lower income consumers and middle and aged adults are more likely to use personal care products with high hazard scores from the environmental working group. And they found that high hazard products are more commonly sold in lower income areas where safer alternatives are harder to find and more expensive.

Katelan Cunningham (36:08):

This is kind of sounding like food deserts.

Sanchali Seth Pal (36:10):

Exactly. And it goes deeper than purchasing power. EWG found that products that most targeted black women are disproportionately the least safe ones on the market. Silent Spring Institute has documented that black women carry higher levels of endocrine disrupting chemicals in their bodies than other groups and are more likely to experience the negative health conditions linked to those chemicals like fibroids, early puberty and breast and uterine cancer.

Katelan Cunningham (36:35):

The Silent Spring Institute that is named after Rachel Carson's book about the risk of pesticide use.

Sanchali Seth Pal (36:41):

Exactly. <laugh> fun fact. I actually went dressed up as Rachel Carson for Halloween when I was in third grade <laugh>. Like I remember learning about her in school and being so inspired and I guess I wanted to be her

Katelan Cunningham (36:54):

<laugh>. Honestly, this is making a lot of sense. I love that <laugh>. So the clean beauty boom, it hasn't quite closed the safety gap left by regulation.

Sanchali Seth Pal (37:04):

It's created a new one. One of the research scientists at the Silent Spring Institute, Dr. Robin Dodson said, we can't just shop our way out of this problem. She said that raising the bar on chemical safety regulations is the most effective and equitable way to protect public health.

Katelan Cunningham (37:22):

So maybe we should employ Lindsay's 70 30 rule. We can use 30% of our efforts to shop better at home and 70% of our efforts to push our representatives to show up for us. When this kind of like legislation and laws come up for a vote,

Sanchali Seth Pal (37:36):

Definitely when every product is safe, and that's just our baseline expectation. Brands can't charge a premium for safety. This is true in Europe. If you've ever walked into a grocery store or a drug store in Europe, the baseline product you buy is both cheaper and less toxic. It would be amazing if we were also lucky we shouldn't have to spend extra money or time sifting through dangerous options just to find ones that are less harmful. I am so grateful we have people like Lindsay showing up to fight for that and we can all do our part as well.

Katelan Cunningham (38:08):

Let's do it. Thanks again, Charlie.

Sanchali Seth Pal (38:10):

You bet.

Katelan Cunningham (38:17):

The next time you see someone on Instagram spouting some doubtful science or you find yourself pulling out your readers to read the small text on an in gradient label, I want you to take a breath and try a few things. First. Remember that you can only rely on verified sources. The Commons app is great. Of course, we rate brands based on their sustainability and part of that work is looking for fossil fuel derived ingredients and ingredients that are explicitly harmful on the environment like unrefined palm oil. For a deeper dive into toxicity, you can check sources like EWG. You can also look for the certifications that Lindsay mentioned. That's EWG for beauty and personal care made safe for household things like cleaners and mattresses and beauty and personal care and the Clean label project for things like protein powders and supplements. But don't forget, you should also call your reps and let them know that you expect them to pass laws to protect our health and our environment and of course, try to stay motivated. It helps to find groups and causes that care about this stuff because regulation change progress can happen much faster when we all chip in. A little

Katelan Cunningham (39:28):

Thanks to the folks who shared how they navigate this very tricky landscape today. You heard from

New Speaker (39:34):

[credits]

Katelan Cunningham (39:54):

This episode was edited and engineered by Evan Goodchild. It was written and produced by me, Kaitlyn Cunningham with research support from McKenna mc Ty. Stick around for one more minute to hear from someone in our community who's doing climate work and needs your help. Thanks for listening and I'll catch you back here next week.

Molly Barton (40:14):

Hello, my name is Molly Barton. I'm recording from England in the uk. The group I'm involved with are called Planet Patrol. They are a not-for-profit organization who work to clean up uh, the country's waterways and rivers. They run a lot of paddle boarding events and basically they have a free app so anyone on these events can upload the list that they find by item, by brand. Um, and it's a way of collecting data all over the country that involves the community. It's really lovely what they do and I'm currently just volunteering for them doing a little bit of image analysis on their app. I'm also about to undertake their water patrol, water testing experiment, uh, which is sort of a new phase of their work. So that's really exciting as well.

‍