Personal Care Products
There are often ingredients used in personal care products (shampoos, conditioners, skin care, deodorants, cosmetics, toothpaste, soap and many more) which have been reported to be irritant or potentially harmful (even carcinogenic in some circumstances).
It is strongly recommended that you check the labels of your family personal care products and look for the following ingredients which may have potentially harmful effects in some cases:
Sodium lauryl sulphate or sodium laureth sulphate:
- Is an irritant used in clinical trials
- Can be detrimental to hair follicles
- Can enter the body via the skin and accumulate
- De-natures proteins, which can affect eyes
- Can damage the immune system and the skin
- Has been listed as a Poison by TGA
Propylene Glycol:
- Can cause contact dermatitis
- Can damage membranes and cause rashes
- Can cause skin and surface damage
- Can cause a number of adverse reactions
- Is a primary skin irritant
- May cause skin and eye irritation
- Can cause gastrointestinal problems, nausea, headaches
- Can cause vomiting and depression
Formalin:
- Can burn eyes
- May irritate skin
- Is a recognised carcinogen
Mineral oil:
- May carry potentially carcinogenic impurities
- Can clog and suffocate the skin
These substances are most often used in products that you would least expect to find harmful and potentially dangerous ingredients.
Some of the products you will find these ingredients in are:
- shampoo
- shower gel
- toothpaste
- mouth wash
- bubble baths
- children's shampoo
- ...and many more...
These ingredients can be detrimental at the area of exposure. Therefore, shampoos may cause dermatitis (dandruff) and skin care products may cause dehydration and premature aging.
But there are many other dangerous ingredients in other products.
Talc in powder has been reported as a probable cancer-causing agent.
Alcohol (which is used in many mouthwashes) has been linked to oral cancer. Read about it.
Aluminium (which is in many anti-perspirants and can come from other sources) may be unhealthy.
Cosmetics usually have few beneficial ingredients and may contain potentially harmful ones such as some colouring agents in lipsticks. Many nail polishes incorporate toxic ingredients and volatile agents like acrylic and acetone.
Warning!
All these ingredients may expose you and your family to unnecessary free radical attack. Thus the balance can be pushed towards you contracting free radical disease (see Health Report).
The best way to reduce your risk is to decrease or preferably eliminate these types of ingredients from your everyday product usage.
Do some research for yourself. Go to the supermarket and find out how many personal care products have these ingredients.
You may have to search further than the supermarket to overcome this dilemma.
However be aware that many companies producing the above products have changed their ingredients to avoid scrutiny. However some just change the ingredient names but still use the same potentially harmful ingredients and others use different ingredients but these still have undesirable elements in them.
To avoid any doubt, I advocate only Certified Organic products be used. This allows an independent third party to ensure that proper ingredients are used in products and that proper manufacturing procedures are carried out.
