Big-name skin care products actually contain fluorescent agents? How can we avoid being contaminated? ? ?

In January this year, we received an email from a fan saying that a certain brand of private parts wash actually contained fluorescent agent!

Through the evaluation and popular science in recent years, we can also feel that people’s concerns about “fluorescent agents” are far more than this, but are reflected in all aspects of life——

Fluorescent brighteners are indeed everywhere in our daily lives: books, A4 paper, white T-shirts, plastic packaging, skin care products...

Everyone’s concerns are not groundless. It can be found everywhere we can reach. Aren’t we living in the “fluorescent agent” in danger?

Today, Dad Review will talk to you about the "disliked fluorescent agent". Let me first state the conclusion: the fact that a product has a fluorescent reaction does not mean that fluorescent agent has been added.

As for whether fluorescent agents are toxic or harmful, please continue reading below——

01

What is fluorescent agent?

Fluorescent agent, full name fluorescent whitening agent, is a fluorescent dye that can stimulate blue and purple light under ultraviolet light, which complements the yellow light on the surface of the object, thus achieving a physical whitening effect optically.

Therefore, fluorescent agents are also widely used in textiles, papermaking, detergents, plastics and other fields. In short, fluorescent agents may be present in all white products or products that want to be whitened.

According to physical and chemical properties, fluorescent agents can be divided into the following two categories:

It can be seen that most of the fluorescent agents we come into contact with in daily life are water-soluble.

02

Fluorescent reaction =

Add fluorescent agent?

Fluorescence reaction can be simply understood as a luminescence phenomenon.

Could it be that... these products all have fluorescent agents added?

Not necessarily. There are so many “things” in our daily lives that can produce fluorescent reactions!

The most common ones are fireflies (fluorescein), human nails (keratin), fruits (vitamins)...

Many raw materials of personal care products also have fluorescent reactions. We selected 20 common raw materials for testing:

Among them, avocado butter, vegetable hydrogenated oil, vaseline, icodoine, Centella asiatica extract, madecassoside, domiphene, lactic acid bacteria powder, niacinamide and other substances produce blue-purple fluorescence phenomenon that is very similar to fluorescent whitening agents.

The above ingredients are also commonly found in personal care products, such as lipstick, lotion, essence, face cream, sunscreen, etc.

The fluorescent reaction of the two products "containing fluorescent agents" mentioned in the fans' comments may come from the raw materials.

03

Is fluorescent agent toxic and harmful?

So are these fluorescent substances harmful to the human body? The researcher will take us through experiments to find out:

First, we conducted migration tests on the above ingredients according to the method of GB 30798-2014.

It can also be seen from the above figure that, except for the Centella asiatica licorice compound extract and fluorescent whitening agent, the others are basically unable to migrate or the migration amount is very small.

In order to verify the effects of these ingredients with strong fluorescent reactions on the skin, the researcher personally went on the face, soaked the gauze in these ingredients, and took pictures with a skin imager.

After applying the wet compress on the face for 15 minutes, we removed the gauze and found that the fluorescence of No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 could migrate to the face.

After washing my face with clean water, only No. 1 and No. 3 still have residual fluorescence.

After 3 days, the facial fluorescence completely disappeared.

In general, even if a product has a fluorescent reaction, it will not necessarily migrate to the skin; fluorescent migration is not terrible, it will disappear with washing and metabolism.

In fact, whether through this real-life experiment or domestic and foreign research and literature references, the conclusions about fluorescent whitening agents are more that they are non-irritating, non-corrosive, non-sensitizing, non-genotoxic, non-teratogenic and non-carcinogenic.

For example, the following are some common safety evaluation results of fluorescent agents:

At present, the global research on the safety of fluorescent whitening agents is still ongoing. In order to protect human health and safety, my country and major developed countries abroad require that fluorescent whitening agents should not be used on food packaging materials.

The following are my country's standards for fluorescent whitening agents:

Therefore, if you purchase regular brand products through regular channels, you basically don’t have to worry too much about the fluorescent whitening agent problem.

04

Last words

As for how to deal with fluorescent agents, we would like to give you some key points:

Through this popular science article, we also hope that everyone can relax about fluorescent agents. After all, the country has formulated and issued relevant standards for various products, and the relevant departments have conducted annual inspections, and even 315, etc., all for the purpose of allowing everyone to live a safe and secure life.

If you can't change it right away, you might as well start by throwing away that fluorescent detection pen.

05

An Easter egg

We also bought and tested the product that the fan emailed about at the beginning.

The test method is the same as the previous one, divided into the original solution, bottle body, migration to gauze and human body.

Both the original solution and the bottle of this private wash have a fluorescent reaction, but it will not migrate.

Finally, private area products should be selected according to the doctor's advice. If you are in good health, it is best not to choose private area cleaning, whitening and other products.

Editor | Yuanyuan

Design | Damao

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