Background
Personal care products (PCPs) are widely used across populations, yet their composition includes a range of hazardous chemicals that pose risks to human health and the environment. Emerging evidence highlights how PCP-related exposures are not evenly distributed, but shaped by intersecting forces of gender, race and social inequality. Despite being framed as tools for empowerment and wellness, PCPs may contribute to disproportionate toxic exposures, particularly for women and girls.
Objective
This narrative review critically examines the environmental health implications of gendered self-care practices through the lens of PCP use. It synthesises current evidence on chemical exposures, identifies high-risk subgroups, explores mechanisms of harm and outlines implications for regulation, clinical practice and environmental health literacy.
Methods
Drawing on interdisciplinary peer-reviewed literature published between 2000 and 2025, the review focuses on endocrine-disrupting chemicals, perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, volatile organic compounds, heavy metals and microparticles and nanoparticles commonly found in PCPs. Particular attention is given to vulnerable populations, including beauty salon workers, pregnant individuals, adolescents, women of colour and infants.
Findings
PCP use results in chronic low-level exposure to multiple hazardous compounds via dermal, inhalation and mucosal routes. These exposures have been linked to adverse reproductive, developmental and metabolic outcomes, increasing the risks of non-communicable diseases like cancer and obesity and possibly affecting infertility rates. Early evidence shows that interventions such as product substitution can yield rapid reductions in internal toxicant levels. However, individual behaviour change alone is insufficient to address systemic disparities in exposure risk.
Conclusions
Self-care must be reframed as a public health and environmental justice issue. Stronger regulatory oversight, clinician education and population-level environmental health literacy are urgently needed to reduce harmful exposures. Equitable self-care should prioritise not only personal choice, but also structural accountability and collective safety.
Gender refers to sociocultural norms, identities, and relations that: 1) structure societies and organizations; and 2) shape behaviors, products, technologies, environments, and knowledge (Schiebinger, 1999). Gender attitudes and behaviors are complex and change across time and place. Importantly, gender is multidimensional (Hyde et al., 2018; Dubois et al., 2025) and intersects with other social categories, such as sex, age, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation and ethnicity (see intersectionality. Gender is distinct from sex (Fausto-Sterling, 2012). Historically, gender definitions have been based on a binary concept – women and men. In most key UN definitions, this binary framework continues to dominate, including in chemical policy. To avoid exclusions, newer definitions and guidelines often additionally use the term “all genders”. Beyond defining gender, applying a binary concept within the difference approach to Gender Mainstreaming remains valuable, productive and necessary, as it allows for comparing the experiences of women and men. Analyzing these differences and using binary-disaggregated data provides insights into social structures and inequalities. While we often work with binary categories for analytical purposes (also in chemicals management), we want to do so with a clear awareness of their limitations and with the aim of building more inclusive approaches in the future.