Statement by Linda Loretz, PhD, Chief Toxicologist Personal Care Products Council On the Cosmetic Use of Polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon)

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Washington, D.C. – “Consumer and product safety are top priorities for cosmetics and personal care products companies, with careful and thorough scientific research and development serving as the foundation for everything that they do.

“A recent report by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) incorrectly focuses on the use of the ingredient polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE; trade name Teflon®) in cosmetics.  PTFE is an ingredient used at low levels to improve the cosmetic feel of some products that are applied to the skin.

“However, the safety concerns raised by EWG are about a different material called PFOA (perfluoroocatanoic acid). PFOA was used in past years as a processing aid in the manufacture of PTFE.  However, PFOA is no longer used to manufacture PTFE.

“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been studying PFOA since the late 1990s.  In 2006, the EPA and the eight manufacturers who used PFOA at that time agreed to a “PFOA stewardship program, with the goal of eliminating PFOA completely from factory emissions and product contents by the end of 2015.  The EPA’s February 2017 Final Progress Report indicates that all of those companies have met the PFOA Stewardship Program goals, and the manufacture and import of all PFOA have been phased out in the United States.

“It is important to understand that the concerns raised about PFOA do not apply to the cosmetic ingredient PTFE.”