An independent laboratory, Valisure, has discovered that a lot of dry shampoo brands contain elevated levels of benzene, a cancer-causing chemical.
The Valisure laboratory sent a petition to the US Food and Drug Administration, showing that among 148 batches from 34 assorted brands of dry shampoo products, 70% of samples tested showed “quantifiable” levels of benzene.
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Last month, certain aerosol dry shampoos – including some Dove, Nexxus, Suave, TIGI and TRESemmé products – were voluntarilly recalled because of the potential presence of benzene.
In the petition, three shampoos from a particular brand contained spray with more than 100 ppm of benzene, and more samples showed more than 10 times the FDA drug limit.
“However, the dry shampoos tested are not drugs and contain no active pharmaceutical ingredient for therapeutic purpose; therefore, any significant detection of benzene could be deemed unacceptable. Furthermore, Valisure shows data from the analysis of benzene by directly sampling contaminated air after spraying dry shampoo products, which suggests potential for short- and long-term inhalation exposure to high levels of benzene. The presence of this known human carcinogen in dry shampoo products that are regularly used indoors and in large volumes makes this finding especially troubling,” David Light, Valisure’s chief executive officer, and Qian Wu, Valisure’s head of global analytics, wrote in the FDA Citizen Petition.
The petition by Valisure further requested that FDA contact the named brands, and better define limits for benzene contamination in other products.
The FDA normally takes 180 days to respond to a citizen petition.