Stop Panicking about Parabens- Seriously!

I recently had the pleasure of meeting and talking with British Skincare Guru Liz Earle (her products are the #1 selling skincare products in the U.K.). Now I'm totally paraphrasing as I didn't tape the meeting, but she basically put my mind at ease about using parabens. After the meeting I started doing some research of my own and she's right- the studies on parabens causing breast cancer are flawed and few and far between. All of this panic has resulted from one study of 20 samples of breast cancer tissue finding parabens in the tumors. According to Liz Earle, that study has never been replicated again-ever! Another problem plaguing this study is the fact that the slides which held the tissue samples were cleaned with a cleaning solution which contained- you guessed it- parabens. Even the American Cancer Society will not condemn parabens. On their website, they say that the current research is inconclusive. The thing that everyone is afraid of is that parabens mimic estrogenic activity. In everything I read, it said that your body's own estrogen is much stronger than any effects that parabens produce. Parabens also form naturally in foods such as rasperries and blueberries. Why would I want to use parabens you ask? Well, because they are one of the most effective and least sensitizing preservatives available for cosmetics. And as a person with less than perfect skin, I want to know that I am not letting any stray germs onto my face simply because the world is afraid to properly preserve my face products and cosmetics. So please, before you throw out every product in your house with parabens in it, do a little research. I think you'll find that parabens are a lot less scary than the media is leading us to believe.