In the current political climate, it can be hard to divorce feelings and fear from facts. So when it was announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had withdrawn a rule it had previously proposed for testing and identifying potential asbestos contamination in cosmetic products that contain talc, social media inevitably erupted with misinterpretations suggesting the FDA had outright ended testing for asbestos in talc. And that would be very concerning—if it were true.
The mineral talc has been a historically common ingredient in cosmetics and personal care products, but it’s faced a lot of scrutiny in recent years. “Talc has been a workhorse ingredient for decades because of its softness, translucency, especially in pressed powders,” cosmetic chemist Kelly Dobos tells Allure. However, “Talc and asbestos often occur near each other in the earth, so contamination can happen if mining and testing aren’t rigorous.”
You may recall the slew of lawsuits issued against Johnson & Johnson in recent years regarding its baby powder and its alleged link to ovarian cancer. (Despite the brand’s insistence that thousands of tests show no presence of asbestos and no proven causation between their product and cancer, Johnson & Johnson no longer formulates its baby powders with talc.) You might even remember when some Claire’s cosmetics products, like the JoJo Siwa Makeup Set, were recalled for alleged asbestos contamination.
In response to the concern these examples caused, numerous companies have reformulated their products to remove talc. “Many brands include it on their ‘clean’ list or ‘no no’ list as it has a negative consumer reputation,” cosmetic chemist Julian Sass says, and that reputation has contributed to the sometimes misinformed reaction to this testing rule withdrawal. So let’s get the facts straight.
Is the FDA ending talc testing for asbestos?
In a word, no. That’s because the FDA never mandated this kind of testing to begin with. “Currently, there is no mandatory federal requirement for asbestos testing in talc-based cosmetics,” Dobos clarifies. “The proposed rule aimed to close this gap by making testing mandatory and uniform.”
Mandatory, uniform asbestos testing in talc-containing products certainly sounds like a good idea. However, it appears that the idea may not be a feasible reality yet.
Why did the proposed testing rule get withdrawn?
“The proposed FDA rule, published in late 2024, would have required manufacturers of talc-containing cosmetics to test each batch of talc or finished product for asbestos contamination using two methods, Polarized Light Microscopy (PLM) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM),” Dobos says. These are imaging techniques that allow for a clearer look at the structure of a specimen under a microscope.
