Question re safety of lotion/creams for hormon+ breast cancer

[Barbara2]

Every time I use a facial lotion, I wonder if it contains something that should be avoided by ER/PR+ breast cancer patients. I'd like to try a cream or lotion to reduce wrinkles/aging, but I'm somewhat hesitant to do so.

Does anyone know about this?

Thank you

[hutchibk]

I use a cream with copper peptides. Neutrogena Visibly Firm. I don't guess I know for sure, but I don't think it poses any risks.

[Lani]

they are propylbaraben, methylparaben and butylparaben.

Their sole purpose is as a preservative and there are many other possible preservatives to use but it is cheap and widely available --so even very expensive products use them. A dermatologist friend says it extremely difficult to find products without them, as he has quite a few patients allergic to them who have great difficulty avoiding them.

This past weekend I spoke to someone with a booth at ASCO who makes UDDER CREAM (I believe that is what it was called) and he was aware of the dilemma but had not yet taken the step to take it out of his product or make two lines, one with and one without. I encouraged him to do so.

I encouraged him to have one line in place in case the scientific literature does incontrovertably implicate the parabens (hasn't happened yet), so he wouldn't be stuck in the same situation as all those manufacturers of plastic bottles.

Crabtree and Evelyn have one natural line without parabens and seem to be aware of the concern.

Unfortunately, despite providing much money to breast cancer research (in fact perhaps even to this website) Avon continues to put parabens into its products.

If parabens did something which no other product did, I could see it. But since the concern is there, providing a choice of products (those with and those without) seems reasonable.

[hutchibk]

thanks for the info Lani!

[lizm100]

Actually there's a website you can check the toxic levels of cosmetics including lotions, creams, make up, shampoos etc.
The website is www.cosmeticsdatabase.com (http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com)

This website has a rating system. Also, my oncologist said to stay away from any products containing soy in food & cosmetics. I've noticed some of Physician's Formula make up contains some type of soy also, I have a Neutrogna face lotion that I found contains soy in it. So it's important to read labels.

Good luck,
Liz

[Unregistered]

Interesting link from the nci regarding parabens
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/AP-Deo

[caya]

I went to my local health food store, Planet Organic, and spoke to one of the beauty consultants there. I bought a lovely hand/body lotion in Cocoa Butter, by a company called JASON - it says Paraben Free right on the tube. I also bought a facial moisturizer called Kiss My Face in Peaches & Creme - also listed as Paraben Free, right on the bottle. We looked on the ingredients list for any soy, did not see any.

The websites for these 2 products are:
www.Jason-natural.com (http://www.Jason-natural.com)
www.kissmyface.com (http://www.kissmyface.com)

Just be careful, because I noticed that some of the different "flavours" did not say Paraben free.

all the best
caya

[jones7676]

I use olive oil...

[Barbara2]

Thanks much for the good tips and suggestions. I will need to do more reading before making a decision/purchase.