Western beauty standards are pushing women of color to use more cosmetic products laden with toxic chemicals, a public health researcher found.

In a commentary published Wednesday, Ami Zota, an assistant professor of environmental and occupational health in the Milken Institute School of Public Health, said black, Latina and Asian-American women were found to have higher levels of chemicals related to beauty products in their bodies than white women.

Even small exposure to these chemicals can have serious health effects especially on the reproductive system, Zota and co-author Bhavna Shamasunder, a researcher at the Occidental College in Los Angeles, warned.

The researchers said that societal and marketing pressures that emphasize a “European” standard of beauty push women of color to buy products like skin lightening face cream containing mercury and hair straightening products linked to premature reproductive development.

“Beauty product use is a critical but underappreciated source of reproductive harm and environmental injustice,” Zota said in a release.

Women of color spend more money on cosmetics than the national average and marketing has targeted those women for products like vaginal douches.

Other studies have found it doesn’t take much exposure to chemicals in cosmetics to adversely impact the reproductive health of women and cause developmental problems in their children. The chemical DEP, which was found in higher amounts in women who douche, has been linked to health problems and birth defects, researchers wrote in the commentary.

During typical childbearing years, exposure to chemicals that harm the reproductive system or fetal development is particularly harmful, the researchers said. The authors urged reproductive health professionals to be prepared to answer questions about the potential impacts of these products.

The authors added women of color are also more likely to live in neighborhoods and homes with higher levels of pollutants. These environments, Shamasunder said, can aggravate the risk of using potentially toxic cosmetic products.

“For women who live in already polluted neighborhoods, beauty product chemicals may add to their overall burden of exposures to toxic chemicals,” she said.