Talc

Talc itself is unremarkable. It is the softest mineral there is, it absorbs moisture, it reduces friction, and it has been in powders and pressed cosmetics for a century for those reasons.

The question is not what talc does. It is what comes with it.

Why the question exists at all

FDA states the geology plainly in its rulemaking: talc is mined as a naturally occurring hydrous magnesium silicate, and “Asbestos is found in the same rock types that host talc deposits”, and so may be found in commercial talc mines and “may be inseparable from talc in the mining process”.

Inseparable is the word to sit with. This is not a contamination that better housekeeping removes. The two minerals form in the same conditions and can be interleaved in the same rock, so the question becomes which deposit was mined and how well the material was tested.

The stakes are set out in the same document: “Asbestos is a known human carcinogen”, and there is general agreement among US federal agencies and the World Health Organization “that there is no established safe threshold for adverse health effects from asbestos exposure”.

No safe threshold. That is a specific and unusual statement, and it is why testing rather than limits is the regulatory route here.

The test that was mandated, proposed, and withdrawn

The Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act of 2022, enacted on 29 December 2022, required FDA to establish and require standardised testing methods for detecting and identifying asbestos in talc-containing cosmetic products. Congress did not ask FDA to consider it. It required the regulations.

FDA issued the proposed rule on 27 December 2024, setting out the methods manufacturers would have to use and corresponding adulteration provisions.

On 28 November 2025 FDA withdrew that proposed rule, “in response to comments received during the comment period for the proposed rule that warrant further consideration and assessment prior to issuing final regulations”.

So the statutory obligation stands and the rule implementing it does not exist. As things are, there is no federally required, standardised asbestos test for a talc cosmetic, nearly four years after the statute that ordered one.

What the existing regulation does and does not cover

There is a talc entry in the colour additive regulations, and it is instructive for what it leaves out.

It lists talc as exempt from certification for colouring drugs, and it sets specifications: lead at not more than 20 parts per million, arsenic at not more than 3 parts per million.

Lead and arsenic have numbers. Asbestos does not appear. That regulation dates from 1977 and was last amended in 1984, and it is a fair picture of how long the gap has been open.

What a reader can actually do

Take the powder question seriously and the pressed-product question less so. Loose powder is inhalable, which is the exposure route the historical concern is built around, and it is also the form most used on infants.

Cornstarch powders are the direct substitute and they carry no equivalent question.

For pressed cosmetics, eyeshadows and blushes where talc is a bulking agent, the exposure is different in kind. That is not a statement that it does not matter, because a no-threshold contaminant does not have a comfortable dose. It is a statement that the two uses are not the same use.

Where a brand states that its talc is tested and names the method, that is real information, and at present it is voluntary information.

The relatives

Silicon dioxide and various starches do the absorbing job. Titanium dioxide does the opacity job. Neither is a like-for-like replacement for the slip talc gives, which is the reason talc has persisted in formulations that could have moved years ago.