I thought about writing this article in the shower the other day after randomly glancing at my shampoo’s ingredient list. I’ve always tried to use natural products, and I had been using ‘Nature’s Gate’ for awhile. I figured it was much better than a typical chemical-filled shampoo, but I never actually thoroughly read it’s ingredients. The thing that caught my eye was one called Polysorbate 20. Anything with a number after the name sounds suspicious.

Here’s the real problem with these products: It’s much easier and cheaper to make your own, 2 ingredient solution to use at home. Anything from soap, toothpaste, cleaner – anything, can be just as effective without the chemicals. It’s no conspiracy to understand that most of the mainstream products purposefully have intense ingredients because, it gets the job done. And then products that are considered organic, still have harsh chemicals in them and they are extremely expensive for many of us.

 

So I got researching a bit and here’s what I found:

Natures Gate Shampoo

I noticed when I was reading a bunch of different products, they all say what ISN’T in their products right on the front, with a long list on the back. These products are designed very specifically to catch your eye and aesthetically please you enough to get you to buy it.

Each type of Nature’s Gate shampoo has different ingredients, and some are more chemical based than others. I have a ginger and basil one that has Polysorbate 20 in it. I found an informative article on this single ingredient, and pretty much in its original form, polysorbate is a sorbitol, which is essentially ‘sugar alcohol’. When it’s put in care products, it’s treated with 20 parts of ethylene oxide, hence the 20 in the name.

“The problem with any ingredient that is treated with ethylene oxide (or “ethoxylated”) is that it can then become contaminated with 1,4-dioxane, a potentially dangerous by-product. In fact, 1,4-dioxane is a known animal carcinogen that penetrates readily into the skin. This ingredient has also been linked with skin allergies.” 1

The real concern of this is when you’re using the product all the time. It can build up in your system and eventually cause sensitivities or allergic reaction type symptoms.

Toms Products

We had made an article awhile ago on how Tom’s wasn’t as natural as they seem. They had been bought by the corporate entity Colgate, and since then everything has changed. I was actually on their site, researching for this article, and they have a massive ingredients list of everything included in their products, and yes fluoride is in there. The big thing that turned everyone off to the product was the use of  Sodium Laurel Sulfate, something thats been know to cause irritation and definitely isn’t natural. 

They even have a specific page about it, almost defending the use of fluoride. They say that it’s different than putting fluoride in water, so it’s alright to spread it around your mouth then spit it out.

Here’s a list of different things in their products you might not want to have in your body.

There seems to be such a debate on the use of fluoride and if it’s actually bad for you or not. Why can’t we go beyond the specific use of this chemical and see that we live in a world where we ‘need’ to put it in our water. We live in a world where the use of chemicals is defended, instead of understanding that if we all shift our way of living, we don’t need chemical based products.

Jason Toothpaste

I had never heard of this company before but saw it in the store and decided to try it out.

Again, on the front of their packages and have a list of what they DON’T have. It’s the intent that goes into these products that matters. They have an ingredient called Carrageenan which is made from seaweeds, but is so heavily processed that the molecular structure can have carcinogenic affects.

They also have stevia in some of their toothpastes, which is a natural sweetener that I enjoy a lot, but putting it in toothpaste seems to defeat the purpose of cleaning your teeth.