--- title: Popular Dry Shampoos Found to Have Cancer-Causing Chemical description: Top-selling dry shampoos contain high levels of benzene, a cancer-causing agent, according to a new independent study. canonical: https://time.com/6227492/dry-shampoo-benzene-cancer/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-11-02T15:07:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:51:31.397Z article:section: Health og:title: Popular Dry Shampoos Found to Have Cancer-Causing Chemical og:description: Top-selling dry shampoos contain high levels of benzene, a cancer-causing chemical, according to a new independent study og:url: https://time.com/6227492/dry-shampoo-benzene-cancer/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt76c38d36b07fec42/698a3701d075339f1ae6d64c/dry-shampoo-spray-benzene.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2120 og:image:height: 1193 og:image:alt: dry-shampoo-spray-benzene og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Popular Dry Shampoos Found to Have Cancer-Causing Chemical twitter:description: Top-selling dry shampoos contain high levels of benzene, a cancer-causing chemical, according to a new independent study twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt76c38d36b07fec42/698a3701d075339f1ae6d64c/dry-shampoo-spray-benzene.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Popular Dry Shampoos Found to Have Cancer-Causing Chemical > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. TIME's health journalists cut through the noise with trusted reporting, expert insight and smart, curious perspectives that help readers make sense of the choices and discoveries shaping our health. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: The Race to Make a Vaccine for Breast Cancer [Watch (HLS stream): The Race to Make a Vaccine for Breast Cancer](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/W5jcvwLu.m3u8) (8:09)  _Published 2022-10-05. Scientists believe there is a future in which women can be vaccinated against breast cancer._ by [Anna Edney/Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Anna Edney/Bloomberg Contributor Nov 2, 2022 3:07 PM UTC  Front view of aerosol spray can isolated on blue background Front view of aerosol spray can isolated on blue background Javier Zayas—Getty Images by [Anna Edney/Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Anna Edney/Bloomberg Contributor Nov 2, 2022 3:07 PM UTC Top-selling dry shampoos including Not Your Mother’s and Church & Dwight Co.’s Batiste contain high levels of [benzene](https://time.com/6084625/sunscreen-safety-regulations/), the cancer-causing chemical that led Unilever to yank its product from shelves in October, according to a new independent study. Valisure, a New Haven, Connecticut-based analytical laboratory, tested 148 batches from 34 brands of spray-on dry shampoo and found that 70% contained benzene. The chemical can cause certain blood cancers, such as leukemia. The company filed a petition Monday with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seeking to have the products that contain the substance recalled. The results add to concerns that products sold over the counter in pharmacies and grocery stores across the U.S. could present previously undetected health risks. Over the past year, Valisure has found benzene in popular spray sunscreens, antiperspirants, and hand sanitizers. Stores have pulled the products from shelves, while regulators and manufacturers are looking more closely at whether impurities are slipping by unnoticed in a complex supply chain. **Read More**: [_The Safest Sunscreens to Buy—and Which Ingredients to Avoid_](https://time.com/6193896/safest-sunscreen-to-buy/) The highest benzene levels among the dry shampoos were found in a popular brand called Not Your Mother’s, which touts its [“clean, quality ingredients.”](https://notyourmothers.com/pages/about) Other brands found to have elevated benzene included Batiste, Sun Bum, and John Paul Mitchell Systems. Valisure’s [petition](http://www.valisure.com/valisure-newsroom/valisure-detects-benzene-in-dry-shampoo) didn’t include dry shampoos already recalled for elevated benzene, such as Dove, Suave and Bed Head, all from Unilever, as well as Procter & Gamble Co.’s Pantene and Herbal Essences. The benzene levels Valisure found in some of the dry shampoos—used to freshen up hair between washes—are significantly higher than any personal-care products the lab has tested before, the study showed. --- ### More from TIME --- When asked if Batiste had been tested for benzene, a spokesperson for Church & Dwight said the company had previously confirmed with its ingredient suppliers that their products didn’t contain the chemical and said it would evaluate Valisure’s petition. Not Your Mother’s, Sun Bum, and John Paul Mitchell Systems didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Valisure brings in income by partnerships it has with businesses to check the quality of certain products, such as a deal it has with Gojo Industries Inc., the maker of Purell hand sanitizer. It also has investors, including Realist Ventures, which is also based in Connecticut. ## Top sellers Batiste, Not Your Mother’s and Dove are the top selling dry shampoo brands in the U.S., with Batiste making up 44% of the $309 million in sales in the year ending July 10 amongst the top 10 brands, according to IRI, a Chicago-based market research firm. Dry shampoo sales were up 22% from a year earlier, IRI said. Church & Dwight Chief Executive Officer Matt Farrell told investors on an earnings call Oct. 28 that Batiste use was up 37% in the third quarter from a year earlier, giving the company a 46% market share. Chief Financial Officer Rick Dierker added: “Batiste is growing like crazy. It’s doing fantastic, we can’t meet all the demand, consumption is up dramatically.” A spray from one can of Not Your Mother’s Beach Babe dry shampoo contained 158 parts per million of benzene, according to Valisure’s findings. In previous studies, the lab found sunscreens with up to 6 parts per million, hand sanitizers with 16 parts per million and antiperspirants with 18\. A can of Batiste Bare Dry Shampoo contained 15 parts per million of benzene in one spray. The Environmental Protection Agency has said inhaling benzene at levels of 0.4 parts per billion (.0004 parts per million) chronically over a lifetime could result in one additional cancer per 100,000 people, a measure of risk the FDA also uses. **Read More**: [_Your Gas Stove May Be Leaking Benzene Into Your Kitchen—Even When It’s Off_](https://time.com/6223219/gas-stove-leaking-benzene/) “Dry shampoo is not a product you use one time and are done with it,” said David Light, CEO of Valisure. “A lot of people use it once a day, or a few times a week.” The high numbers call into question statements like the one Unilever made when it recalled Dove, Tresemme, Suave, Bed Head, and Rockaholic dry shampoos on Oct. 18, stating that, “Based on an independent health hazard evaluation, daily exposure to benzene in the recalled products at the levels detected in testing would not be expected to cause adverse health consequences.” Unilever didn’t respond to questions about the levels of benzene found in its products. “We had seen significant amounts of benzene in Unilever products before they went on recall,” Light said, declining to specify amounts. P&G was the first to recall dry shampoo in December, pulling Pantene and Herbal Essences versions from shelves. The move came after P&G tested its entire aerosol portfolio following the revelations from Valisure’s previous work. No other major consumer-goods manufacturer has publicly disclosed similar internal testing. ## Sunscreens, sanitizers Valisure has found [high benzene levels ](https://www.valisure.com/valisure-newsroom/timeline-of-consumer-product-recalls-due-to-benzene)in spray sunscreens, including versions of Johnson & Johnson’s Neutrogena products; aerosol antiperspirants such as Procter & Gamble’s Secret and Old Spice brands; and some hand sanitizers that were introduced to the market at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. The supply chains that bring consumers their grooming products are complex, globe-spanning endeavors, making it difficult to determine precisely where the toxins are introduced. The problems potentially go back “all the way back to a raw material being contaminated and making it thorough the entire global supply chain, through all the various hands it has to touch, and all the various quality check points that are supposed to be there,” Light said. After all that, “it’s still ending up on the shelf in a customer’s hands, in their homes, with such alarmingly high levels of contamination. That’s very concerning.” Some companies have pointed to propellants as the problem. Spray personal-care products, including dry shampoos, often contain propellants like propane and butane that are petroleum distillates made by refining crude oil. Benzene is a known contaminant of petroleum products. The propane and butane used in personal-care products are supposed to be purified so that no benzene is present. The FDA has confirmed propellants are a potential source of benzene contamination. On July 29, Edgewell Personal Care Co. recalled its aerosol Banana Boat Hair & Scalp sunscreen because of benzene contamination. The company said the “unexpected levels of benzene came from the propellant that sprays the product out of the can.” The FDA has asked companies that make drug products at high risk of being contaminated with benzene, like sunscreen, to test for the toxin. Dry shampoo is a cosmetic, which the FDA regulates, but not nearly as stringently as it does drugs. ## No limits While the FDA hasn’t set benzene limits for cosmetics, it does say the products shouldn’t contain “any poisonous or deleterious substance.” In drug applications, the FDA allows levels of 2 parts per million of benzene if “use is unavoidable in order to produce a drug product with a significant therapeutic advance.” Valisure has asked the FDA to clarify that there isn’t an acceptable level of benzene in cosmetic products and to develop guidelines for benzene testing in cosmetics. Valisure’s analysis found extreme variation in sprays, even from the same can, “suggesting inconsistent product composition and/or aerosolization in some products,” the lab said in the petition. While Not Your Mother’s Clean Freak dry shampoo contained 143 parts per million of benzene in the first spray, the fourth spray contained 93 parts per million. Valisure’s findings, including a list of contaminated dry shampoos, can be found in the petition it filed with the FDA. The contamination could be even higher than those findings, an expanded study showed. Valisure has been testing for benzene in personal-care products for some time, but with its dry-shampoo probe, the researchers took a deeper approach. The lab partnered with Syft Technologies, a company that designs and sells trace gas analysis equipment, to conduct direct air-measurement tests, which can more precisely capture benzene levels. Syft is headquartered in New Zealand, with an office in Pittsburgh. When Valisure tests a product, it uses a standard procedure that requires putting a sample into a vial. This means some chemicals may escape before they’re measured. Syft uses a method that detects chemical levels in the air, including whatever is sprayed from an aerosol can. Using Syft’s data, Valisure determined it’s possible the actual benzene levels in spray-on dry shampoo could be 10 times to 50 times higher than what standard testing reveals. For example, Syft found benzene levels of 1,600 parts per billion—4,000 times higher than the EPA’s guidance—in the initial cloud of a 10-second spray of Not Your Mother’s dry shampoo. Longer-term exposure showed about 36 parts per billion, with Syft taking measurements in a 550 cubic foot space over 15 minutes. Using that data, Valisure calculated the benzene concentration in the Not Your Mother’s can totaled 340 parts per million, or 170 times the FDA’s limit for drugs. Data based on Syft’s findings likely more closely mimic real-world conditions. “This is particularly dangerous,” Light said. —With assistance from Jonathan Roeder. ## Transcript Vaccines are often called The Miracle of modern medicine for their ability to Target the immune system against disease-causing, viruses and bacteria. Since they work against infectious diseases, why not against other conditions that have long plagued Humanity like cancer. To say we're working to develop a vaccine to prevent Cancers and individuals for the rest of your life. It sounds like Star Wars but it's not a concept that's totally unchartered me vaccines against human papillomavirus which is causative agent in certain types of human cancers. Work to prevent cancer in those individuals who get vaccinated and so are we? We no longer is nikoli more about the immune system in the last 20 years in the face of cancer. Studies and cancer. And now it's covid that we can bring this knowledge to this big goal of using a new system to prevent all types of cancers and and do so with humility and optimize the immune response against cancer by training cells to recognize tumors as foreign. Once that happens in breast cancer, it may be possible to not only prevent Prince's in people who have already had cancer, but to even prevent it in the first place, I was diagnosed in 1987 and I wasn't treated much differently from what the treatments or today. Oh, wow. Yes, there's a lot of focus on immunotherapy and that's exciting. It's exciting from a research perspective but it hasn't really made a difference in women's lives. Yet, we believe that a vaccine approach is certainly the key and primary prevention or preventing people from getting breast cancer to begin with because we believe that that is the future, that that is one of the areas that we should be focusing on now. We believe not only will it save lives, but it will also be less toxic than existing Therapies. You know, technologies that have have been developed over the past five to ten years. Are number one, immune checkpoint Inhibitors. So, immune checkpoint Inhibitors is a form of therapy that has been you know now approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in targeting a number of different cancers were, we had has been effective lasso in in certain tumors. And so, the reason that vaccines don't work against metastatic deposits of tumor is because the tumors themselves. Throw up a number of Walls that ultimately prevents the immune response from acting and killing the tumor. So the whole idea just like an infectious disease, vaccine used to identify what's foreign in the tumor as much as possible and to really craft A vaccine that targets what's foreign because that's really word. You know we're going to see the power of the immune response and in shrinking or preventing a cancer is having multiple targets within the tumor. But also having them be very foreign at the Mayo. Clinic Newton has developed a vaccine targeting, a very early form of breast cancer called ductal carcinoma inside you or DC, is he is working with his colleague dr. Amy degnan to test that vaccine experts, have debated in recent years, whether dcis is actually cancer since it involves lesions that remain in the ducts of the breast tissue and don't spread throughout the breast as other forms of breast cancer. Do about 50 1,000 women. A year are diagnosed with DC is in the US and some of those cases will become cancerous. Although doctors, can't predict which one As a result many women with the condition up to have radiation and surgery to remove the lesions to avoid the risk of developing cancer. if the immune system could be trained to attack tcis instead that would potentially help women to avoid the more invasive treatments, which some experts believe might be over treating their condition We are interested in pushing forward, you know, toward a goal of vaccines for breast cancer prevention. And so one strategy to do that is to then evaluate a vaccine that we found was safe and women who had invasive cancer and apply it to women who don't have invasive cancer yet who have this dcis and evaluate what kind of immune response we see in those women. And one of the things that were specifically interested in this study to see is what kind of response do we see in the breast tissue after this vaccine is given, can we find evidence that the immune system is reacting to the vaccine and potentially, you know, trying to clear out these cancer cells in the breast tissue. So, in this trial, we give the vaccine for several doses of the vaccine before surgery, and women who have dcis. And then at the time of We're removing their dcis as we would not normally to treat it, but we're also able to then investigate the breast tissue and the area of DCs and and see what is happening with the immune response there after the vaccine, the team at the Abramson Cancer Center, at Penn Medicine, is studying a different approach to a breast cancer vaccine. They are currently a rolling about 16th bull who have been diagnosed with cancer and who have the genetic mutations, bcra one or bcra to which put them at higher risk of developing breast cancer to see if vaccinating them will lower their chance of recurrence. The researchers also had to study a couple dozen people with the genetic risk, but who has not yet been diagnosed with cancer to see if the vaccine could lower their risk of ever developing the disease. It's a, it's a game changer and we recognize that we have a ways to go. But right now, if you're a 25 year old woman who has undergone genetic testing and is told that you have a safe for me to yishun, you're talkin about raining for the rest of your life for your breasts or deciding to do a bilateral, mastectomy have your breasts removed and at this point we had no effective screening for ovarian cancer. And so we strongly recommend that individuals have their ovaries removed between ages, 35 and 44 a beer, signaling carrier, putting them into early menopause. And with all the attendant Dallas ring consequence that we really have not had great options apart from surgical options. And, you know, we're working on many different types of strategies to try alternative National the natural history. But this concept of immune interception being able to use the immune system to change the natural history for these individual is so critical. We are probably at the end of the era of using cancer, vaccines with great hope in a patient, whose party been treated with everything in the tumor is still Advanced to using these vaccines and all our new knowledge in patients, who are at risk for relapse or individuals who are simply a high risk for cancer and we want to prevent so prevention. 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