Why I Would NOT Buy a RoC Retinol Product (And Why Your Cosmetics Might Be Killing You)

Let me start by saying: I am not a skincare expert. 

Not by a long shot. 

But what I do know is this: 

If a company refuses to disclose the percentage of retinol in their retinol products, you should not buy that brand's products. 

If they won't tell you how much retinol they're using, it's because they're using so little that it's not even useful. 

This came up because I decided to buy some kind of retinol product last night. Someone I knew recommended RoC products...

But when I contacted the company to find out how much retinol is in various products (I tried Googling, of course, but couldn't find the answer anywhere), I was surprised by their response: 

​Regarding your inquiry, the percentage of Retinol in our products is proprietary information to the RoC Brand. We can let you know RoC products are known to have highly effective Retinol. As compared to competitor brands, RoC uses pure Retinol in its products
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In other words, our products don't do what they say they will do.

I took my business elsewhere. (For what it's worth, my friend who is a skincare expert says that if she were going to use a retinol product, it would be differin, because it is designed for acne but is more powerful than other forms of retinol, so would be more effective against other forms of aging.)

​But while we're on the topic of cosmetics companies, it is worth noting that your cosmetics might be killing you.

I've traveled pretty extensively -- and the more I travel, the more clear it is to me that America is the best country. 

"We don't have to worry about there being small pieces of white plastic in our rice," I told someone recently, "Or that there's poison in our baby food!" (Hi, China!)

But one thing that bugs me about this country is the lack of regulation over cosmetics. 

​As per FDA.gov, 

​The law does not require cosmetic products and ingredients, other than color additives, to have FDA approval before they go on the market.
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Hadley Duncan at the Journal of Health and Biomedical Law writes, 

​The American cosmetic industry rakes in north of $80 billion-a-year.  Despite the cosmetic industry’s size, the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Office of Cosmetics and Colors only has an annual budget of $8 million dollars and a staff made up of less than 30 people to regulate this industry.  Additionally, the FDA’s only legal oversight of cosmetic companies comes from the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act passed in 1938.  The act has not been updated since 1938 and is a measly two pages that limits the FDA to only regulating adulterated or misbranded products, or falsely packaged products.  The act doesn’t require the FDA to recall potentially dangerous items or monitor the ingredients used in products, which leaves the cosmetic industry with incredible freedom to use whatever ingredients in its products...

[The FDA] cannot require companies to submit safety data before they market a product, adhere to basic manufacturing standards, register with the FDA, report problems or adverse events that consumers tell them about.  The FDA cannot demand to inspect companies’ records when an incidents with one of their products occurs.   The FDA can only inspect facilities for visible defects.  Additionally, the FDA only has the ability to test less than 1% of the imported cosmetics, meaning it cannot ensure all products’ safety.


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Anecdotally, I would say that most people are completely unaware of this. As Americans, we kind of just expect that the products we use are safe, and it's a real bummer this isn't always the case. 

The good news is, thanks to consumer outcry and House and Senate members introducing bills to increase the monitoring of the cosmetic industry, plans to increase FDA regulations over the cosmetic industry are in their early stages.

Another comment I will make is that Amazon is full of counterfeit products, from conditioner to sunscreen to sunglasses to motorcycle helmets. 

People have literally died after buying fake motorcycle and bike helmets and other safety gear on Amazon, and Amazon pretty much doesn't care and is doing nothing to stop this. Amazon is so flooded with knock-off Chinese products right now, it's basically like China in America. 

A buddy sent me a particularly egregious example of a fake skincare product he ordered on Amazon. It's called Wilder's Moisturizing Anti-Aging Cream for Men -- and if you look, the product has 571 5-star reviews. That's why my friend bought it. It even looked like an American product "because it had pictures of mountains on it."

But when the package arrived, something was fishy. Supposedly, this is a retinol product, meaning it increases your sun sensitivity. The advice normally given on retinol products is to use extra sun protection or stay out of the sun completely while using the product.

​The manufacturer of this fake product didn't even bother to proofread before copy-pasting text from another product onto the label of this one. The instructions literally say, "Apply to clean skin in circular motions 15 minutes before sun exposure." 

Additionally, according to my friend, the product smells "like the kind of cheap body lotion you get for free at hotels. Which very well could be what this is." 

So why the 5-star reviews? 

Because it's really easy for these companies to buy fake reviews, and, again, Amazon is doing nothing to prevent this from happening. So if you're shopping on Amazon and the name of the seller is something weird like YINME and they have tons of great reviews, treat that as a warning. (I used to buy products on Amazon by looking only at 5-star reviews, but ever since buying a pair of $30 earbuds with only one working bud that underperformed relative to the $4 ones I got at Farm and Fleet, I know better than to trust the reviews.)

So if you're looking to buy a book (I just finished What Happened? by Hillary Rodham Clinton -- and now might be the most interesting time in the world to read this book, as she discusses universal basic income, black lives matter, blue lives matter, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, and several other topics that remain relevant and timely), or super cheap used sheet music, Amazon might be a good place to do that. ​

​But if you need any kind of baby toy, cosmetic, safety gear, or anything else where getting a counterfeit product could harm your health or kill you, you should buy directly from the manufacturer, even if it costs a little more -- after all, it's cheaper to spend $3 more on a real skincare product than to spend $15 on a watery knockoff that doesn't even work.