Before becoming a cosmetic chemist, I believed many of these myths,” says Quebec City-based scientific communicator Sarah Bélanger. “I once bought an aluminum-free deodorant because I had been convinced by a friend that aluminum could cause breast cancer [a claim that’s been widely debunked]. I keep that deodorant as a reminder that I, too, was influenced by fear-based narratives in the past.” She’s now known as Miss Derme on social media, where she’s gained a following by dispelling prevalent beauty misconceptions.
Bélanger, like many in the scientific community, isn’t a fan of terms like “clean” and “free from.” They may sound reassuring, but legally, they mean very little. (“Free from” lists, in particular, often include perfectly harmless ingredients or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, substances that were never used in cosmetics in the first place or have actually been banned for decades, like mercury and lead.) “Brands actively fuel concern through those types of marketing claims while simultaneously profiting from them,” says Bélanger. “To me, that dynamic is deeply predatory and hypocritical.”
Dr. Jenny Liu, a U.S.-board- certified dermatologist, sees the consequences of this play out in her exam room. “Some patients come in feeling anxious about using the ‘wrong’ ingredients or panicked over perceived damage from ingredients that are actually safe and well studied,” she says. “Claims that certain ingredients, like parabens, silicones and sunscreen filters, are ‘toxic’ are rarely grounded in sound science, yet they get amplified quickly.”
That amplification is no accident. Alarmist messaging travels faster than facts, particularly on platforms that are built for virality, like TikTok. “Social media only makes money when you spend more time on it,” says Palermino. “There are zero incentives for truth or education—only [the incentive] to get you sucked in.”