Potential EDCs may be present in 15% of US beauty products, report finds
29 October 2026
Industry urged to move beyond list-based screening to capture full range of endocrine disruptors
North America United States Personal care Alternatives assessment & substitution Safer alternatives Global Hazard assessment Data reporting Chemical restrictions Substances of concern Sustainability Chemical management Confidentiality & right to know Ingredient transparency / disclosure Cosmetic Products Green products
Up to 15.4% of beauty and personal care products analysed by an NGO initiative may contain a potential endocrine disrupting chemical (EDC), according to an industry-led report that highlights gaps in how the sector identifies emerging chemical hazards.
The 22 October report by the Know Better, Do Better (KBDB) collaborative, managed by science-based organisation ChemFORWARD, analysed 156,594 https://product.enhesa.com/article/news/2348094/potential-edcs-may-be-present-in-15-of-us-beauty-products-report-finds 1/9
10/29/26, 11:42 AM Potential EDCs may be present in 15% of US beauty products, report fi… products commercially available in the US using the Safer Chemistry Impact Metrics Framework (see box). The analysis covered nearly 2.9 million ingredient entries, counting each ingredient once for every time it appeared.
The figures represent a significant increase from last year’s report, which assessed 48,000 products and more than 1.25 million total ingredients.
The collaborative screened the beauty and personal care dataset for EDCs using the ChemSec SIN List and ChemFORWARD Chemical Hazard Data Trust. It identified 54 substances as EDCs in the database, of which 19 appeared in the product dataset. Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), citral and ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate were among the most prevalent. It estimated that up to 15.4% of products assessed may contain a potential EDC.
Heather McKenney, science and safer chemistry director with ChemFORWARD, said harmonised approaches for identifying EDCs are still evolving, and list-based screening may not capture the full range of known and potential EDCs.
"To proactively manage endocrine hazards, companies need a dynamic chemical hazard assessment (CHA)-based approach that can incorporate evolving scientific evidence and hazard classification levels," McKenney told Chemical Watch News & Insight.
Comparing metrics
The report's broader metrics present a mixed picture of the beauty sector's transition to safer chemistry, although McKenney warned that the figures cannot be used to determine whether the sector's chemical footprint has improved.
The number of products evaluated more than tripled this year, and the dataset expanded into more specialised product categories, which McKenney said led to fluctuations in the headline metrics that cannot necessarily be interpreted as either improvement or regression.
The report presents these percentages by ingredient occurrence, rather than by the number of distinct substances or their concentrations in products. It found 69.4% of ingredients were characterised, meaning their human health and environmental hazards have been assessed, compared with 76% in the previous report. The proportion classified as verified
10/29/26, 11:42 AM Potential EDCs may be present in 15% of US beauty products, report fi… safer chemistry was 62.8%, down from 71.3% previously, while the proportion classified as chemicals of concern (CoCs) was 5.3%, up from 3.7%.
But McKenney said identifying a higher proportion of CoCs does not necessarily establish that products are becoming less safe. More comprehensive chemical footprinting can reveal previously unknown hazards, increasing the number of CoCs identified, she said.
"When companies map their full inventories and apply our core protective principle – that the absence of data does not equal safe – they inevitably uncover previously unknown hazardous chemicals alongside verified safer chemistry," said McKenney.
McKenney added that this analysis of beauty and personal care products, published ahead of the United Nations Global Framework on Chemicals (GFC) conference (16-20 November), demonstrates how companies can evaluate their chemical footprint, identify emerging concerns and track progress towards safer ingredients.
Safer Chemistry Impact Metrics Framework
The framework from the Safer Chemistry Impact Fund (SCIF) uses data from ChemFORWARD to track year-on-year progress towards safer alternatives against five key metrics, including:
in-scope chemicals disclosed, to allow businesses to have enough visibility of their chemical inventory;
chemical characterisation, differentiating between substances with understood
• hazards and those still awaiting assessment; verified safer or low-concern chemistry, showing what companies are moving
• towards with their alternatives, not just what they are eliminating; CoCs, helping companies prioritise substitution, supplier engagement, product
• redesign or other management actions; and uncharacterised chemicals, highlighting data gaps so companies can prioritise
• disclosure, chemical identification or hazard assessment.