Benzyl Benzoate

Take a moment and think about your morning routine, maybe you wake up shower, do your hair, makeup and before you leave spray on perfume. Have you ever taken a step back and looked at the ingredients in the products you’re using? If there were ingredients you weren’t aware of have you researched them to see their health impacts? I’m guessing the general consensus is no because why should we, if companies are selling them they must be safe to put on or in our body. I did exactly this with my Marc Jacobs perfume and found a chemical called benzyl benzoate.

Benzyl benzoate does occur naturally it can be isolated from a species of plant called polyalthia which is native to India.¹ In the cosmetic industry benzyl benzoate is synthesized. Benzyl benzoate isn’t very toxic the LD₅₀ is 1680mg/kg if taken orally or 4000mg/kg if applied on the skin.³ This compound isn’t only used in the cosmetic industry it is actually very common in the treatment of scabies as a topical ointment.³ Scabies is a skin infection that is caused by mite bites that leads to excessive itching. Benzyl benzoate works by killing the mite’s immune system.³

In the cosmetic industry benzyl benzoate is used as a fixative meaning it stabilizes the perfume chemically.⁴ There hasn’t been a lot of research into the health impacts on what can happen when you are applying things like perfume to your body every day, but there was one study done that found that there was a connection in perfume being applied to the chest region and an increase in growth of breast cancer cells.⁵ There hasn’t been enough research into this to make this a definitive correlation but it is something to think about.

The purpose of writing this was to get you thinking do you really know what’s in the products you’re using? Personally, I will continue to use Marc Jacobs perfume, I am now aware that benzyl benzoate is a relatively safe product to use but I will keep an eye to see if any more research goes into finding if there is a correlation between it and the increase in breast cancer cells.

References:

¹National Center for Biotechnology Information. PubChem Database. Benzyl benzoate, CID=2345, https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Benzyl-benzoate (accessed on Jan. 27, 2020)

² Opgrande, J., Brown, E., Hesser, M., & Andrews, J. (2003). Benzoic Acid. Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia Of Chemical Technology. doi: 10.1002/0471238961.0205142615160718.a02.pub2

³Benzyl benzoate - DrugBank. (2020). Retrieved 29 January 2020, from https://www.drugbank.ca/drugs/DB00676

⁴ National Center for Biotechnology Information. PubChem Database. Benzyl benzoate, CID=2345, https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Benzyl-benzoate (accessed on Jan. 27, 2020)

⁵ Charles, A., & Darbre, P. (2009). Oestrogenic activity of benzyl salicylate, benzyl benzoate and butylphenylmethylpropional (Lilial) in MCF7 human breast cancer cellsin vitro. Journal Of Applied Toxicology, 29(5), 422-434. doi: 10.1002/jat.1429