Shopping around for “natural” beauty
We need standards to ensure that words like" natural" have a clear meaning. The personal care industry should follow the lead of food labelling requirements.
I am a mother of two and expecting number three. Whilst never to ridiculous extremes, I have always been health conscious, but being pregnant, I'm more conscious than normal about making sure all the ingredients in the products I purchase are safe and healthy.
So I've been reading about so-called "non-toxic" products on the market. Instead of it becoming clearer I am becoming increasingly confused. Claims are being made that aren't easily verifiable, both by the traditional, large, multinational personal health care companies, as well as the smaller, new-age, ‘natural' health care manufacturers .
Media hype has scared many consumers off using products that contain high levels of mineral oils and sodium laureth sulfate for fear of losing their hair, damaging their skin or developing cancer.
When I scoured the shelves of the supermarket for products that do and don't contain these ingredients, I was surprised to see that none of the products list the percentage of each ingredient in the product. The skin is the largest organ in the body, making it an extremely effective way for the body to absorb the sorts of chemicals and minerals found in these products into our system.
Australian Standards require that all the foods we buy have strict product ingredient labeling including that percentage of recommended daily intake (RDI) of certain ingredients be clearly listed.
Why aren't there similar standards for all of our personal care products? It would be a much more level playing field if this could be achieved.
Catherine Fritz-Kalish is co-founder and General Manager of Global Access Partners (GAP) – a proactive and influential network which initiates high-level discussions at the cutting edge of the most pressing commercial, social and global issues of today. Catherine's broad business experience includes coordination of a number of international initiatives for the SME unit of the OECD (Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development) at headquarters in Paris, marketing and brand management within all seven divisions of the George Weston Foods Group, and working within the TCG Group of Companies in the area of start-up incubator establishment.
Catherine Fritz-Kalish is the co-founder and Managing Director of Global Access Partners (GAP) and Director of the International Centre for Democratic Partnerships (ICDP) and ICDP Foundation. She also holds Board positions for a number of not-for-profit organisations.
sally.rose
February 18, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Buyer Beware
Reading your blog inspired me to do a little inventory of my own bathroom cabinet. Without wanting to mention brand names I can say that I found a range of products with adjectives including; "organic", "organix", "natural", "naturalle", and "floral extracts" either in the product name or prominently displayed on the label. All of these products had either sodium laureth sulphate, propelbarene blah di blah or some other chemical compound I can now no longer recall how to spell listed as the primary ingredient. Choosing personal care products is definitely a case of BUYER BEWARE. Companies, large and small, are able to get huge marketing leverage out of these claims and are in no way obligated to use a minimum amount of the promoted natural ingredients. Should containing 0.03% Brazil nut oil really be sufficient for a product to be advertised as being "made from natural, organic, free-trade brazil nut oil"?
MikeM
February 19, 2009 at 10:18 am
Is “natural” better?
Many natural products are detrimental to health or even poisonous. Rhubarb leaves contain oxalic acid and bitter almonds contain cyanide. The various bacteria that cause food poisoning in humans are as natural as we are; some might argue even more so.
Whether sodium laureth sulfate is more detrimental to the body than sodium stearate (it and similar chemicals are the primary constituent of most bath soaps) is a moot point. There are probably people who find one is safe and that the other causes dermatitis, and vice versa.
Sodium stearate is manufactured by heating up beef or mutton fat with caustic soda (sodium hydroxide). The fat decomposes into glycerol (glycerine) and stearic acid, which reacts with the caustic to produce sodium stearate. Salt is added to precipitate the soap out of solution. Glycerol is extracted as a byproduct and surplus caustic soda is recycled.
Sodium stearate is generally classed by the personal care products industry as "natural", presumably because similar products have been manufactured since ancient Egyptian times.
Sodium laureth sulfate is a "chemical" since it has only been in widespread use since the 1950s. There is also a certain irony in the fact that food and cosmetic additives are subject to some level of toxicity testing. That has never been the case for potatoes (whose skins become poisonous under some conditions) or for peanuts (which may account for more allergies than other food "chemicals" combined).
And, as for mystery chemical ingredients, have you ever looked at the composition of a well-known fast food chain's hamburger bun? In the US it contains:
The Australian ingredient list is less baffling, but still contains things that you might not want to put on your skin. (I emphasise I am not singling this company out. It is very open about its products. You can compare what you get there with what you get from a major pizza chain here.)
But why would you actually think that sodium laureth sulfate is a bad thing to put on your skin if it causes no visible reaction? There is an urban myth that it may cause cancer. Snopes finds that:
It links to the American Cancer Society web site, which concurs. So my question, Catherine and Sally, is: what is the risk that you are trying to avoid when you try to avoid SLS?
MikeM avoids consuming chemicals whose dietary purpose he does not understand.
alison gordon
February 26, 2009 at 1:14 am
time to be honest
I'll put my hand up here and say I've never bothered rigorously checking the ingredients of my beauty products, I generally pay more attention to the price and value for money than whether it contains the word "natural" somewhere on the front label.
Like Sally though I did a bit of an inventory of my bathroom cupboard and yes, it is rather surprising how misleading some of these products are. We think because we aren't eating it, it doesn't affect our health, but really our shampoos, facial cleansers and deodorants are food for our skin and hair. We should approach use with the same frame of mind as what we eat and drink.
Mind you, it does take a lot of patience and practise to learn what all these technical, wordy and fancy terms mean and their possible side effects.
A friend of mine went to a seminar recently on chemicals in food products. It took her first shopping trip to Coles about three hours to complete, huddled over this little booklet each time she picked up a new product!!
Alecia Garcia
July 30, 2010 at 9:16 am
natural organic skin care products
Hey!!!
I am really shocked to know that you are a mother of three. You look younger. Now I am sure that I too won’t look old after having three children as I also prefer natural products. Sometime ago I suffered from skin problems but when I started using organic products I got relief from all such problems….Thanks for spiraling my belief in natural products….
http://www.absolutelygorgeous.com.au/