Lately I have felt the need to distance myself from the hair product industry. Many of the ingredients commonly found in hair products are at least mildly damaging to our bodies. I am concerned, too, about the product industry’s hold on our minds. Why do we feel like we need all this stuff, and what are the consequences of feeling like we need stuff? And when I consider the effect of the ingredients and the packaging on the environment, I feel that I must find alternatives to store-bought hair products.
Pick up any shampoo bottle, from any price range. They all have similar ingredients. Usually the most prevalent ingredient after water is some kind of sulfate. Sulfates dry out your hair, and they strip the hair color. Even worse, they are linked to cancer and a known allergen as well. Only after that on the ingredients list will you get to the natural ingredients boasted on the front of the bottle. Your kelp extract, vitamin C, rose petals, etc. Towards the end of the list, the names get longer and harder too read. Methyl-something-propyl-something-paraben. If the word ends in -paraben, that’s not good. When you see -paraben you can insert organ toxicity, linked to cancer, ugh and lots more.
If you want some real information about what is actually in the products, and how these ingredients are scary, there is an amazingly helpful website for this. I highly recommend browsing through, and returning to frequently, the Environmental Working Group’s page. They have compiled lots of research and information from various governments and studies. You can do a search on a specific product or ingredient to see the specific risks associated with each substance. They even have a ranking system of risk from one to ten.
So will dipping your finger in shampoo give you cancer? I don’t think so. But consider how much shampoo we use over an entire lifetime. Most Americans wash their hair every single day. I’m going to assume that most people don’t rinse that shampoo out completely. And what we do rinse often seeps down our face or back and accumulates. Consider also how many of these harming ingredients are in everything we put on our bodies. The ingredients in most body wash are almost identical to those found in shampoo. Sulfates are in all the major brands of toothpaste. They are in the detergent we wash our clothes in, and in the soap we wash our dishes with.
Sometimes I hear of a study where a rat is given an obscene amount of X substance, more amount of X than I could ever imagine a human consuming. The rat gets cancer and so X is linked to cancer. With a study like that I think any ingredient could seem to cause cancer. But in the case of common ingredients found in shampoos and other cosmetics, we are that rat. We douse ourselves with these ingredients every time we shower, wash our hands, or brush our teeth.
Think about it.
Filed under: Uncategorized, DIY, Environmental Working Group, Hair, hair care, ingredients in shampoos, parabens, sulfates
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