Please help protect salon workers!

The manufacturers of Brazilian Blowout must stop deceiving salons about the danger of their products, thanks to a settlement with the California Attorney General. The lawsuit was filed under the authority of the law we helped pass in 2005, the California Safe Cosmetics Act – so this is a true victory for safe cosmetics advocacy! Now, Brazilian Blowout products will carry warning stickers and salons will finally get accurate information about the health risks of using them. But, these dangerous products are still on the shelves, and salon workers and their customers are still being exposed every day to a known human carcinogen.

We need your help today to protect salon workers and women who get their hair straightened from these harmful toxic exposures! Please join us in asking the FDA to follow through on its August 2011 warning to Brazilian Blowout, which stated that the products are “adulterated” and "misbranded" and therefore subject to seizure. Current law doesn’t give the FDA much power, but it does give them the authority to seize cosmetic products that are unsafe or injurious to users.

Brazilian Blowout products have been banned in many countries, and now it’s time for FDA to get these dangerous products off American shelves, too. Just personalize the message below and we'll deliver it to Michael W. Roosevelt, Acting Director of the FDA's Office of Compliance for the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

Subject:

Your Letter:

Dear Acting Director Roosevelt,

In August, you warned the manufacturers of Brazilian Blowout that its hair straightening treatments were “adulterated” and “misbranded” and therefore subject to seizure by the Food and Drug Administration. The products were found by your agency to contain between 8.7% and 10.4% formaldehyde in the form of methylene glycol.

We are writing to urge you to use your existing statutory authority, follow through on your letter, and get these dangerous products off the shelves. We further urge FDA to add formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, to the list of substances banned from cosmetics.

As you know, on January 30, 2012, the California Attorney General settled its lawsuit with Brazilian Blowout, and required the company to put clear hazard warnings on their products. The California lawsuit makes it clear that the manufacturers of Brazilian Blowout have had a long history of misbranding their products.

In April 2011, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued a "hazard alert" to salon workers and owners, urging them to stop using formaldehyde-based hair straighteners.

According to the Cosmetic Ingredient Review, the cosmetics industry’s own self-policing panel, formaldehyde levels in cosmetics should not exceed 0.2%. The EPA has classified formaldehyde as a possible carcinogen and the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the National Academy of Sciences have identified it as a human carcinogen.

Six countries, Australia, Ireland, Canada, France, Germany and Cyprus, have already taken steps to stop distribution of Brazilian Blowout products.

We are writing to ask you to use your existing statutory authority under the Federal Food, Drugs and Cosmetic Act to take the strongest action possible to protect salon workers and their customers from unnecessary exposures to a known carcinogen. Please follow through on your August letter to Brazilian Blowout, get these products off the shelves, and prevent further risk to salon workers and their customers by adding formaldehyde to the list of substances that are banned or restricted from cosmetics. 
 
Sincerely,

Michael Roosevelt

US FDA Office of Compliance, Center for Food Safety and Applied