More Top-Selling Dry Shampoos Found to Have Cancer-Causing Benzene: Study

Unilever issues voluntary U.S. recall of select dry shampoos due to potential presence of benzene. (FDA)

A new study has found elevated levels of benzene, a human carcinogen, in a string of top-selling dry shampoo brands.

Researchers at Valisure, a New Haven, Connecticut-based independent analytical laboratory, tested 148 batches from 34 different brands using industry-standard GC-MS technology.

Among the dry shampoos tested were those from the brands Redken, Not Your Mother’s, Sebastian, Batiste, OGX, and Paul Mitchell Invisiblewear.

They found that 70 percent of the samples tested showed “quantifiable levels of benzene,” while some samples analyzed directly from contaminated air “suggest the sprayed product contained up to 170 times the conditionally restricted FDA concentration limit of 2 parts per million (ppm).”

Researchers published their findings on Tuesday.

Benzene is a colorless or light-yellow liquid chemical at room temperature and can be found in many places in the environment, with humans exposed to the chemical on a daily basis in both indoor and outdoor settings.

Trace levels of the chemical can be found in cigarette smoke, gasoline, glues, adhesives, cleaning products, paint strippers, and more.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the World Health Organization, and other regulatory agencies, long-term exposure to high levels of benzene is known to cause cancer, including leukemia and blood cancer of the bone marrow, in humans. It can also cause life-threatening blood disorders.

‘Cause for Significant Concern’

“The detection of high levels of benzene in dry shampoos should be cause for significant concern since these products are likely used indoors, where benzene may linger and be inhaled for prolonged periods of time,” said David Light, CEO of Valisure, in a press release.

“These and other issues identified by Valisure, including the detection of benzene in body spray, hand sanitizer, and sunscreen products, strongly underscore the importance of independent testing and its need to be better integrated into an increasingly complex and vulnerable global supply chain.”

Valisure subsequently sent a petition to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requesting that the agency recall the products identified in the study and requesting that if benzene use in products is unavoidable, for example, due to its help in producing a “drug product with a significant therapeutic advance,” then their levels should be restricted to the FDA concentration limit of 2 parts per million.

“However, the dry shampoos tested are not drugs and contain no active pharmaceutical ingredient for a therapeutic purpose; therefore, any significant detection of benzene could be deemed unacceptable,” the researchers wrote.

The results of the study come shortly after Unilever U.S. issued a voluntary recall of several brands of dry shampoo aerosol products after discovering potentially “elevated levels” of benzene.

Under that recall, brands including Dove, Nexxus, Suave, TIGI (Rockaholic and Bed Head), and TRESemmé that were produced before October 2021 were pulled from shelves.

In a statement, Unilever U.S. said that based on an independent health hazard evaluation, “daily exposure to benzene in the recalled products at the levels detected in testing would not be expected to cause adverse health consequences,” but that the global consumer goods company was recalling the products “out of an abundance of caution.”

It added that it had not received any reports of adverse events related to the recalled products to date.

The Epoch Times has contacted the FDA for comment.

Mimi Nguyen Ly contributed to this report.