SLS, SLES, Parabens..... good/bad?

J

jhclare

Joined
Saturday July 11, 2009
Hi all,

I have visited a few websites recently of folks making and or selling "natural" products. They delight in telling you that their products are free of SLS, SLES, parabens, etc, and how we should be using all natural products, i.e. theirs.

Trouble is, many of my favourite products contain these. So, how bad are these ingredients really? A lot of shaving products contain parabens (Proraso), face wash/shampoo/shower gels contain SLES and/or SLS. I don't notice my skin being any drier than when using soap, in fact many times it feels less dry.

Is there any hard evidence that using these products will cause harm over the long term? Or is it just a clever sales tactic?

John
 
If you believe Soapalchemist they are the work of the Devil himself, if you believe Dr Henk he'll happily bathe in them and take a swig. ;)
 
jhclare said:
Hi all,

I have visited a few websites recently of folks making and or selling "natural" products. They delight in telling you that their products are free of SLS, SLES, parabens, etc, and how we should be using all natural products, i.e. theirs.

Trouble is, many of my favourite products contain these. So, how bad are these ingredients really? A lot of shaving products contain parabens (Proraso), face wash/shampoo/shower gels contain SLES and/or SLS. I don't notice my skin being any drier than when using soap, in fact many times it feels less dry.

Is there any hard evidence that using these products will cause harm over the long term? Or is it just a clever sales tactic?
Click to expand...

SLS and SLES are safe. As safe as the sugar and butter that you eat every day. (not that you should eat SLS...)

In fact, soaps are harsher on the skin than most cosmetics-approved syndets (synthetic detergents). Parabens are also safe. In fact, they are the safest effective cosmetics preservatives around. There has been a major media scare about parabens and their alleged link with breast cancer and other hormonal activity, which was based on, like, really bad science by a really misguided scientist. Not one government cosmetics safety body has found a shred of evidence for any of the alleged health effects of parabens.

Of course as long as there is a media and consumer hype, there will always be companies that try to cash in on that by claiming, e.g. that their cosmetics are 'paraben free'. Most of the time, those cosmetics will either contain more harmful preservatives, or no preservatives at all. Which is a very real consumer health issue in itself.

As for soaps -- they really don't need any preservatives, due to their low water content, and high pH conditions. So claiming that your soap is preservative-free is like claiming that your olive oil does not contain cholesterol, or that your boyfriend is not pregnant: trivial and irrelevant. I don't know what the English idiom is, but in Dutch we call that a 'truth like a cow'.
 
Pretty much everything on this planet causes cancer if you look hard enough..
When the concerned media / Government run out of major scares or ideas for quangos they look round for stuff to wind people up about.

Rile up enough righteous conviction, some half baked science and a 'qualified' spokesman and you could convince the layman of just about anything - (MMR jab anyone?)

I dont let things like this worry me unless the science is fairly overwhelming.
 
jhclare said:
I have visited a few websites recently of folks making and or selling "natural" products. They delight in telling you that their products are free of SLS, SLES, parabens, etc, and how we should be using all natural products, i.e. theirs.
Click to expand...

These are the type of people who I buy all my toiletries from. I used to buy shower gels, shampoos, shaving foams etc from the supermarkets and chemists which contained all these ingredients. As a result I suffered from dry, tight and flaky skin. I decided enough was enough and went down the natural route. All of these problems have cleared up and my skin is thanking me for it.

I couldn't possibly comment on individual ingredients but all I can say is that after using natural products I have seen a dramatic improvement in my skin.

Even if I had no problems to start with I probably would have found myself going for natural products as I find them to be much better quality and can smell fantastic (Burt's Bees men's bodywash is one of my favourites!)
 
RajK said:
These are the type of people who I buy all my toiletries from. I used to buy shower gels, shampoos, shaving foams etc from the supermarkets and chemists which contained all these ingredients. As a result I suffered from dry, tight and flaky skin. I decided enough was enough and went down the natural route. All of these problems have cleared up and my skin is thanking me for it.

I couldn't possibly comment on individual ingredients but all I can say is that after using natural products I have seen a dramatic improvement in my skin.

Even if I had no problems to start with I probably would have found myself going for natural products as I find them to be much better quality and can smell fantastic (Burt's Bees men's bodywash is one of my favourites!)
Click to expand...

Hmmm.... sounds like you must have some kind of allergy to SLES/SLS. I've read about that somehwere. I would do the same if I were in your shoes. Luckily, my skin isn't irritated by much. I wonder if there really is that much benefit to me using natural products.

John
 
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