ABSTRACT
When phenol is dumped into river water, it is very toxic to aquatic fauna and lethal at a concentration of 1 ppm. The genuine toxicity of phenol and the almost apocalyptic descriptions of its side effects, which can even lead to death by cardiovascular collapse, severely limited its cosmetic use until the second half of the 1990s, especially in Europe. English-language publications state that, even so, a phenol peel is “one of the most frequently used techniques in the treatment of photoaging.”1
