The Food and Drug Administration warned today that it had found asbestos in cosmetics sold by Claire’s, a retailer that markets jewelry and makeup to teenagers, and urged consumers not to use the products.

Consumer claims of asbestos, a known carcinogen, in some Claire’s cosmetics were reported in 2017. The company withdrew products from store shelves but did not recall them.

The FDA, which received its test results in February, said Claire’s refused to recall the products. The agency issued a safety alert urging consumers not to use certain eye shadows, compact powders and contour palettes.

The regulator’s test results “show significant errors,” Claire’s said in a statement, adding that the items identified by the FDA had been “extensively tested by multiple independent accredited laboratories” in early 2018 and were found to follow safety regulations.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we have removed the three products identified by the FDA from our stores, and are also removing any remaining talc-based cosmetic products,” said Melanie Berry, a spokeswoman for the company. “There is no evidence that any products sold by Claire’s are unsafe.”

The retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last March and emerged in October after shedding $1.9 billion of debt.

Today, the FDA’s departing commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, criticized the “outdated” way the agency regulated cosmetics safety. The regulator is hemmed in by “limitations on our cosmetic oversight authority,” Gottlieb said in a joint statement with Susan Mayne, the director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

The agency is not, for example, allowed to force Claire’s to recall the contaminated products.

The legislation that determines the extent of the FDA’s authority, the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, has not been updated since it was enacted in 1938, Gottlieb said. The agency relies on the cosmetics industry to police itself.

The FDA called on the industry to be more forthcoming about its safety procedures, especially in relation to how it sources and tests talc. The agency said it had used the most sensitive methods available to test 34 cosmetic products from four talc suppliers in 2010 and found no traces of asbestos.

Asbestos can contaminate talc because the minerals are often intermingled in mines. It is “one of the deadliest substances in existence,” Scott Faber, the senior vice president for government affairs for the Environmental Working Group advocacy group, said in a statement.

The New York Times and Reuters reported late last year that Johnson & Johnson had known for decades about the risk of asbestos contamination in its popular baby powder and other talc-based body powders, but tried to keep negative information from reaching the public. The company received subpoenas for more information last month from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department.

Last month, Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., said they hoped to overhaul cosmetics legislation this year.

“To modernize our overall approach, we need to expand the scope of what we’re able to do commensurate with the scope of the cosmetics industry, and we’re going to seek a broader dialogue on how we can make the overall system more robust,” Gottlieb and Mayne said in their statement.

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