Ingredient

Titanium Dioxide

First discovered in 1795, this white pigment has had many names! TiO2 is the formula, CI77891 the colour index when used in cosmetics, and E171 or Pigment White 6 in the USA when used in food.

Where do we get it?

Lush* purchases titanium dioxide powder from multiple sources with origins in India and the Czech Republic. 

*With several manufacturing sites across the globe, this information may vary depending on where your Lush products were made.

What are the benefits of titanium dioxide?

• It can help to make transparent things more opaque. That may sound strange, but it actually has plenty of interesting applications. For example, the formula of a shower gel can be slightly tinted with pigments but will still be transparent. By adding titanium dioxide, the base background is opacified and the colours appear more visually vibrant.
  
  
• This opacifying effect can also be used for lather in the bath, levelling up its apparent creaminess. It makes each bubble look slightly denser and better defined - Hollywood style bubble bath!
  
  
• It can be used for visual effects, to create a colourful, lustrous shimmer or glow. These effects are made by coating a transparent substrate (for example, Synthetic Fluorphlogopite) with a very thin layer of TiO2. The thickness of the layer creates different coloured reflections. Think of it a bit like harnessing the eye-catching rainbow effect of a prism in the sunshine. 
  
  
• TiO2 reflects UV rays, a property that helps naked products be more stable and less prone to fading.

Controversy and regulations

Since the 1920s, titanium dioxide has been used in a wide variety of commercial products without being questioned, until a few years ago when concerned consumers and NGOs began to worry about its presence in many of our foods. Missing clear data, they called on the authorities to conduct new independent studies on the possible health effects.

In 2017 and 2019, the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health Safety (ANSES) published an opinion on the use of TiO2 as a food additive. Based on the results of several recent and worrisome studies, they urged the French and European governments to look further into the subject. First criticised, the opinion finally led to the ban of TiO2 as a food additive in France, as of January 2020 (extended to 2021).

In May 2021, the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) came to the same conclusion as France and banned the additive in food from 2022. Indeed, although it is very difficult to prove that TiO2 causes damage to the human body when ingested, there are enough doubts and points of concern in the available data to favour a precautionary ban. The SCCS (Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety) has looked closely at the safety of TiO2 in cosmetic products. In May 2024, they concluded that further investigations are needed to exclude the risk to the consumer regarding oral care cosmetics, which you can read more about here. 

In October 2021, certain powder forms of titanium dioxide were restricted in the European Cosmetic Regulations.  The concern was inhalation risk and the criteria for inhalation exposure, which has restrictions on powder-form titanium dioxide that contains 1% or more of particles with aerodynamic diameter ≤ 10 μm. In 2022 the European courts annulled the harmonised classification and labelling of titanium dioxide as an inhalation carcinogen in certain powder forms, a decision which was upheld in August 2025. 

Lush stance

Now, what does this mean for Lush? As a business, we always strive for due diligence, and we can't ignore that we have a few products that are used around the mouth that contain TiO2, such as some lip scrubs, toothy tabs, mouthwash and lipsticks.  As such, we take great care to source and formulate responsibly with titanium dioxide. 

That’s why we conducted tests on our own sources of titanium dioxide at XCellR8, an animal-free laboratory we have been working with for a decade. The results showed that our products are safe to use, provided that our recommendations for use are followed. Since the EFSA is mainly concerned about the genotoxicity of this ingredient, we tested this aspect thoroughly and concluded that our TiO2 is not genotoxic. Furthermore, the ingestion of TiO2 when using our oral care products is so low that the exposure is below the threshold of concern for humans. Even so, we are working on removing TiO2 from oral care. 

From a manufacturing point of view,  Lush purchase most of our titanium dioxide as a pre-dispersed paste to limit any risk of inhalation. Similarly, where titanium dioxide is used in a Lush product-making kit, it is pre-dispersed in a liquid to form a paste. This paste may occasionally be combined with other additional powder ingredients, but the titanium dioxide itself is not provided as a neat powder form, meaning it does not present an inhalation risk. This has been reviewed by our in-house toxicologist, who has confirmed that our product-making kits are safe for children and adults to use.

If you still wish to avoid using titanium dioxide, feel free to browse our ingredient lists on the labels or the website. Alternatively, contact our wonderful Customer Care teams for help.

This article was last updated in October 2025.