The Bid to Restrict Forever Chemicals in Cosmetics, Explained

Lawmakers in California, Colorado, Maryland, and several other states have moved to ban intentionally added PFAS, the class of synthetic "forever chemicals," from cosmetics such as foundation, waterproof mascara, concealer, and long-wear lip products, with similar proposals pending in Congress and under review by European regulators. This article breaks down what the restrictions actually cover, which product categories keep showing up in independent testing, how serious the health risk appears to be based on current evidence, and what practical swaps you can make while the rules catch up. Nothing here is a guarantee that any specific product is free of PFAS; it is a summary of public disclosures, state legislation, and third-party research, current as of this writing.

What Is the Bid to Restrict PFAS in Cosmetics About?

PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a family of thousands of synthetic compounds prized for making products slippery, water-resistant, and long-wearing. In cosmetics, that translates to foundation that resists sweat, mascara that survives a workout, and lipstick that does not transfer. The trouble is that many PFAS compounds break down extremely slowly in the environment and in the human body, which is why they earned the "forever chemicals" nickname.

Since 2021, a string of state bills has targeted intentionally added PFAS in personal care products. California's Toxic Free Cosmetics Act (AB 2771) prohibits the sale of cosmetics containing any of 24 listed chemicals, including PFAS, starting January 1, 2025. Colorado, Maryland, and Washington have passed comparable measures with slightly different chemical lists and timelines. At the federal level, the "No PFAS in Cosmetics Act" has been reintroduced in Congress as part of a broader Safer Beauty package, though it has not yet passed. In the European Union, the European Chemicals Agency is separately evaluating a sweeping restriction on PFAS as an entire class, which would touch cosmetics alongside textiles, food packaging, and cookware.

Why Are These Bills Necessary if Cosmetics Are Already Regulated?

In the United States, cosmetic ingredients are not required to undergo pre-market safety testing or federal approval the way drugs are. The FDA can act after a product is shown to be harmful, but it has limited authority to preemptively ban a class of chemicals across an entire category. State legislatures have stepped in largely because federal action has been slow, and because independent testing kept finding fluorine, a marker for PFAS, in products that did not disclose it on the label.

Which Brands and Products Keep Coming Up in PFAS Testing?

A widely cited 2021 study published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters (Whitehead et al., in partnership with the Environmental Working Group and Notre Dame researchers) screened 231 cosmetic products purchased in the US and Canada for total fluorine, a proxy for PFAS content. The researchers found that more than half of the waterproof mascaras, roughly 63 percent of foundations, and a majority of the liquid lipsticks tested had fluorine levels consistent with intentionally added PFAS, even though very few of those products listed a PFAS ingredient by name on the label.

That study, notably, did not publish a full brand-by-brand scorecard, which is part of why lawmakers pushed for mandatory ingredient disclosure and outright bans rather than relying on voluntary testing. The categories most consistently flagged across multiple studies and state hearings are.

• Waterproof mascara and other waterproof eye makeup
• Long-wear and liquid foundation
• Foundation primer and setting products
• Long-wear or transfer-resistant lip products
• Some pressed powders and concealers

If you want to check how specific formulas you already own are graded based on public ingredient and disclosure data, our makeup finder waterproof mascara finder, and foundation and primer finder are built to surface that comparison rather than making you dig through safety data sheets yourself.

Is It Only Makeup, or Are Other Personal Care Products Included?

Most of the state bills bundle cosmetics together with other personal care categories in the same legislation. Menstrual products, in particular, have drawn scrutiny after a 2023 Sierra Club-commissioned test found fluorine indicative of PFAS in some period underwear, prompting several states to fold menstrual products into their PFAS restriction bills alongside cosmetics. That is one reason we track PFAS-related grading for tampons and period underwear the same way we do for makeup. Among products in our database Seventh Generation Tampons grade Excellent (100/100) and the Modibodi Basic Mid-Rise Period Brief grades Excellent (90/100), and both records include a published Mamavation lab test that found no PFAS markers. Lola Non-Toxic Applicator Free Tampons grade Good (70/100), because Lola makes no PFAS statement for its tampons. None of these grades is an independent lab certification of zero PFAS content. You can browse the full category at /finder/period-care or /finder/tampons.

How Serious Is the Actual Health Risk?

This is the part that deserves a careful, non-alarmist answer. PFAS exposure has been associated in epidemiological research with effects including altered cholesterol levels, changes in liver enzymes, reduced response to vaccines, and, for a subset of compounds like PFOA, increased risk of certain cancers and pregnancy-related conditions. It is important to be precise here, these are associations found in population studies, not proof that any single cosmetic product causes a specific disease in a specific person. Dose, duration, and route of exposure all matter, and the science on lower-dose, occasional skin contact with cosmetics is much thinner than the science on PFAS in drinking water, where exposure tends to be continuous and higher.

Most public health researchers and toxicologists who study PFAS point to drinking water, industrial contamination near manufacturing sites, and certain food packaging as the dominant sources of measurable PFAS body burden for the average person, with cosmetics representing a smaller, though not negligible, contributor. That framing does not mean cosmetic PFAS is irrelevant; it means the restriction bills are best understood as a precautionary, cumulative-exposure measure rather than a response to an acute poisoning risk from any single tube of mascara.

What Do the Proposed and Passed Restrictions Actually Say?

The details vary by jurisdiction, and it is easy to conflate a "ban" with a "disclosure requirement." The table below summarizes how several of the major bills compare, based on publicly available legislative text and agency summaries.

Jurisdiction	Measure	Scope	Effective date
California	Toxic Free Cosmetics Act, AB 2771	Bans intentionally added PFAS and 23 other listed chemicals in any cosmetic sold in the state	January 1, 2025
Colorado	HB 24-1286 and related cosmetics provisions	Phases out intentionally added PFAS in cosmetics and several other consumer categories	Phased, 2024 through 2027
Maryland	Cosmetic Safety Act	Prohibits PFAS and select other chemicals in cosmetics sold in-state	2025
Washington State	Safer Products for Washington PFAS rules	Covers cosmetics alongside menstrual products, apparel, and other categories under a phased chemical-class approach	Phased, ongoing
United States federal	No PFAS in Cosmetics Act (proposed, part of Safer Beauty package)	Would direct the FDA to ban intentionally added PFAS in cosmetics nationwide	Not yet enacted
European Union	ECHA universal PFAS restriction proposal	Broad, cross-sector restriction that would include cosmetics, still under regulatory review	Under review, multi-year process expected

A key limitation across nearly all of these bills is that they restrict "intentionally added" PFAS, meaning a manufacturer knowingly used a fluorinated ingredient. They generally do not test finished products for trace contamination that can occur from shared manufacturing equipment or contaminated raw materials, which is part of why independent fluorine testing sometimes finds PFAS signals in products that technically comply with the letter of the law.

What Should You Actually Do Right Now?

Given that enforcement is uneven and labeling requirements are still catching up, the most practical approach is to treat brand PFAS-free claims as a starting point, not a verified guarantee, and to prioritize the categories where testing has repeatedly found problems, waterproof and long-wear formulas.

How Should You Read a PFAS-Free Claim on a Label?

A brand statement that a product is "PFAS-free" is a brand-stated claim unless it is accompanied by a named third-party lab and a testing method. Treat unverified claims as directional information, not certainty. Where we grade products in our database, a high score reflects our model's estimate based on ingredient disclosures, safety data sheets, and public regulatory filings, not an independent laboratory test of that specific batch. You can read the full scoring approach at /methodology.

Which Categories Deserve Extra Scrutiny When Shopping?

Based on the pattern in existing testing, waterproof mascara, transfer-resistant foundation, and long-wear lip products warrant the most caution, since fluorinated silicones and PTFE are common performance additives in exactly those formulas. Standard, non-waterproof formulas and mineral-based powders have shown lower fluorine detection rates in the same studies, though "lower" is not the same as "zero."

Category	PFAS concern level (based on published testing)	What to look for instead
Waterproof mascara	Higher, fluorine detected in majority of tested samples	Non-waterproof formulas, or brands publishing third-party PFAS test results
Long-wear liquid foundation	Higher, fluorine detected in majority of tested samples	Mineral powder foundations, formulas without "fluoro" or "perfluoro" ingredient names
Standard lipstick or gloss	Lower to moderate	Products with published ingredient lists free of PTFE or fluoroalkyl compounds
Pressed mineral powders	Lower in most reviewed studies	Still worth checking brand disclosure pages
Period underwear and tampons	Variable by brand, some flagged in 2023 testing	Products with published third-party testing, see our period underwear finder

What About PFAS Exposure Beyond Cosmetics?

Because researchers generally consider drinking water a larger contributor to overall PFAS body burden than cosmetics, a filtration step at home is one of the more evidence-backed actions available to reduce cumulative exposure, alongside choosing lower-concern personal care items. Several pitcher and dispenser filters in our database carry an Excellent grade in our model based on their materials, including the LifeStraw Home Award-Winning Glass Water Filter Pitcher at 100 and the Clearly Filtered Water Filter Pitcher, the Berkey Gravity Filter, and the ZeroWater Filter at 95. None of these makers has a PFAS-free statement about the product itself on record. A grade in our system means the product met our model's threshold based on materials and public data reviewed, not that independent lab results confirm zero PFAS in your specific tap water after filtration. You can compare all reviewed options at /finder/water-filters.

It is also worth remembering that the forever chemicals conversation extends into kitchenware, where nonstick coatings have historically used PFAS-based compounds. Ceramic-coated alternatives such as the Caraway Ceramic Baking Sheet, graded Excellent (90/100), and GreenPan GreenLife Ceramic Nonstick Bakeware, graded Good (70/100), rest on brand statements that they are made without PFAS, which we record as unverified. They represent the kind of category shift, toward coatings their makers say are made without PFAS, that cosmetics regulation is now trying to replicate.

Should You Throw Out Everything You Own?

No. Based on available evidence, occasional use of a single waterproof mascara is a very different exposure scenario than years of continuous, unfiltered contaminated drinking water. A reasonable, non-alarmist approach is to phase out high-risk categories as you naturally run out of them, prioritize disclosure-forward brands going forward, and address the larger, better-documented exposure pathways like water first. Use our cosmetics finder and deodorant finder to compare current options as you replace products rather than discarding a functioning routine overnight.

Bottom Line

State and federal bills are moving to restrict intentionally added PFAS in cosmetics because independent testing has repeatedly found fluorine, a PFAS marker, in waterproof mascara, long-wear foundation, and similar products, even when it was not disclosed on the label. The health risk from cosmetic exposure specifically appears smaller than the risk from contaminated drinking water, based on current research, and association is not the same as proven individual harm. Treat any brand's "PFAS-free" claim as a starting point rather than a lab-verified guarantee unless a named third-party test is cited. The most practical steps available right now are checking product-specific data through tools like our product finder, prioritizing water filtration, and phasing out waterproof or long-wear formulas as you naturally replace them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a state PFAS ban mean every cosmetic in that state is now free of forever chemicals?

Not automatically. The bans target intentionally added PFAS ingredients and rely largely on manufacturer compliance and disclosure rather than mandatory batch testing of every finished product, so enforcement and actual reformulation timelines vary by brand and by the specific chemical involved.

If a brand says its product is "PFAS-free," can I trust that claim?

Treat it as a brand-stated claim rather than an independently verified fact unless the brand names a specific third-party lab and testing method. Based on available materials and data, our grading reflects disclosed formulation and public filings, not a guarantee derived from lab testing of every batch.

What is the single most effective thing I can do to lower my PFAS exposure overall?

Most researchers point to drinking water as the largest and most consistent PFAS exposure source for the general population, so a certified filtration pitcher or system, alongside checking your local water utility's PFAS testing data, is generally considered a higher-impact step than swapping any one cosmetic product, though both are reasonable parts of an overall reduction strategy.