Safety Guide To Children's Personal Care Products
Parent's buying guide
Printable PDF guide
Brand buying guide
Ingredients to avoid

EWG Report
Summary
Exposures add up
Children are vulnerable
Why aren't all products safe?
Methodology
Survey results
References
News release

Survey Design and Dissemination

Environmental Working Group conducted an online survey asking parents which personal care products they had used on their children (age 0-9) in the last week, and how often. Parents taking the survey were able to select from among products contained in EWG's personal care product database (the Skin Deep database), or enter product names in cases where our database did not yet contain their product.

We disseminated the survey through the EWG email newsletter, through advertisement on the EWG and Skin Deep websites, and via the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics listserv. We also notified parenting blogs, listservs, and websites; links to the survey appeared in many of these formats. We provided survey respondents with a "tell a friend" option to invite others to take the survey. We collected survey responses for 3 weeks.

27.8% of survey responses were for infants (up to 1 year), 18.6% were for one year olds, 19.8% were for two year olds, and 11.5% were for three year olds. 15.6% of survey responses were for children age 4 to 6, and 6.7% were for children age 7 to 9.

According to survey responses, Johnson & Johnson was the most popular brand of personal care product for children, followed by Huggies and Pampers.

Exposure Modeling and Analysis

EWG researchers linked survey response fields to our Skin Deep database, an online database of more than 23,000 personal care products, which includes lists of ingredients and associated health concerns. The 3,308 useful responses to the survey reported use of more than 1,200 different products by more than 450 brands. 90% of the 22,000 product type use selections or answers matched a well-defined brand in the Skin Deep database, and 8,000 were identified as an exact product match in Skin Deep. Unfortunately, only 250 of the survey respondents identified every product used as a product in Skin Deep.

To determine how many ingredients the average child is exposed to, EWG built a probabilistic model of personal care product exposures using the 3,308 children's 22,755 reported product uses. We created 10 product usage profiles (type, frequency, and brand) for each survey response. We assigned products to each survey based first on exact product matches between the parent response and the Skin Deep product database where available, and then by matching by product type and brand when the exact product was not available in Skin Deep or was not entered by a parent. When brand or exact product information was missing from a child's usage profile, a product was assigned at random from the Skin Deep database. Through this method the resulting modeled product usage profiles accurately reflect product and brand frequencies reported by parents in our survey.

This probabilistic model allowed EWG to extrapolate exposure statistics for a population of over 30,000 model children. We base the statistics we provide in this study regarding exposure to ingredients, individually or grouped in terms of health effects or level of assessment, on the usage and ingredients of the products selected for the resulting model children. We report statistics regarding products or product types based on raw survey data.

Ingredients of Concern

We provide data on chemical hazards and regulatory status of ingredients that we have compiled from more than 50 databases and sources from government agencies, industry panels, academic institutions, and other credible bodies. We developed 2 lists of ingredients of special concern based on this survey: Ingredients to avoid, and ingredients to avoid when possible.

Ingredients to avoid meet both of the following criteria: 1) the ingredients are linked to several significant, well-documented health effects, or are considered unsafe for infants according to the cosmetic industry's own safety panel; 2) products free of these ingredients are readily available from mainstream sources.

Ingredients to avoid when possible meet any of the following criteria: 1) the ingredients are linked to health risks, but widespread use in personal care products makes them difficult to avoid; 2) proven benefits of appropriate use of the ingredient are considered alongside health risks; 3) the primary health concern for an ingredient are its associated impurities, which may or may not contaminate products; 4) preliminary study of an ingredient suggests serious health concerns that require further study.

Claims Analysis

EWG's personal care product database (the Skin Deep database) contains details about product packaging, including directions, indications, warnings, and other marketing claims, for many products. EWG analyzed claims on 1711 products selected by parents filling out the survey, or shown on other products in the Skin Deep database specifically marketed for children.

We performed analyses of ingredients contained in products that are labeled with the following terms: 1) "keep out of reach of children" and similar; 2) "safe," "non-toxic," and not including "harsh" or "toxic" chemicals; 3) "recommended" or "tested" by a doctor, pediatrician, dermatologist, or ophthalmologist, and similar; and 4) "gentle," "mild," "sensitive," "delicate," "tender," "non-irritating," "hypoallergenic," "dermatologist," and "allergy." Packaging text with the identified words and phrases was hand-checked for context, to assure usage expressed the intended idea. EWG manually verified the relevance of package claims in all analyses showing ingredients that contradicted label claims, including products containing ingredients of concern highlighted in this report, or ingredients associated with substantial cumulative hazards related to allergy or irritation, including "fragrance," a known human allergen.