Our make-up shouldn’t contain toxic ingredients that harm our health
Today CALPIRG's State Director Jenn Engstrom testified in support of legislation to ban toxic PFAS chemicals from cosmetics and personal care products
Concerns are mounting worldwide about the toxicity and environmental persistence of PFAS chemicals.
As Assemblymember Friedman highlighted, PFAS are linked to a range of health effects, including breast and other cancers, immune suppression leading to an increased risk of COVID, and hormone disruption, and these hazardous chemicals persist in the environment literally forever.
California has already prohibited the entire class of PFAS chemicals from being used in firefighting foam, food packaging, and juvenile products. Yet there is no state or federal law that prohibits the use of these toxic, “forever” chemicals in cosmetic products.
This is a problem because a recent study conducted by the University of Notre Dame found high amounts of PFAS in over half of the beauty and personal care products they tested. Products we use on our bodies every day shouldn’t contain toxic ingredients that put our health at risk.
Because PFAS chemicals don’t break down, they also pollute our water when these products are washed down the drain and the wastewater ends up in our environment. PFAS chemicals have already contaminated the drinking water of more than 16 million Californians.
AB 2771 will help protect Californians’ health and our drinking water by banning the use of intentionally added PFAS chemicals in beauty and personal care products.
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Jenn Engstrom
State Director, CALPIRG
Jenn directs CALPIRG’s advocacy efforts, and is a leading voice in Sacramento and across the state on protecting public health, consumer protections and defending our democracy. Jenn has served on the CALPIRG board for the past two years before stepping into her current role. Most recently, as the deputy national director for the Student PIRGs, she helped run our national effort to mobilize hundreds of thousands of students to vote. She led CALPIRG’s organizing team for years and managed our citizen outreach offices across the state, running campaigns to ban single-use plastic bags, stop the overuse of antibiotics, and go 100% renewable energy. Jenn lives in Los Angeles, where she enjoys spending time at the beach and visiting the many amazing restaurants in her city.
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