We got rid of the plastic, now what? Why washing your hands with detergents is bad!
We got rid of the plastic, now what? Why washing your hands with detergents is bad, and you are all doing it.
When you think of detergent, what comes to mind? Maybe, your first thought is the product you throw into your laundry to wash your clothes or the stuff you put in your dishwasher to wash all that burnt, greasy, stuck on food. All those harsh chemicals are designed for that purpose alone. Those harsh chemicals are not designed to clean your skin and may have detrimental effects on our environment.
Why do we want to avoid detergents in our hand/body washes?
- Most likely to cause dermatitis, known to sensitive skin types
- Drying to skin, making skin itchy, flaky and leads to early skin aging
- Causing rashes and eczema making skin raw can lead to some nasty infections
- Does not biodegrade
Detergents find their way into water systems, can accumulate to toxic and harmful substances
Pollutes our Great Lakes that supply’s 12 million people with clean drinking water
Increases algae in the Great Lakes which suffocates fish (thousands of fish dead on the beaches up in Lake County Ohio 2021 and years prior)
Detergents in your hand/body soaps are avoidable. To avoid detergents, look at the ingredient list and if it contains any of these types listed below, then it is a detergent.
Sulfates - Sodium Lauryl Sulfate or Sodium Laureth Sulfate/ Sodium Lauryl Ether Sulfate (SLS/ SLES) or Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (SDS) – Found in almost every hand wash, it is a skin irritant along with an environmental pollutant.
Phosphates – Does not degrade in the environment causing eutrophication which explodes the algal population therefore suffocating fish. Just recently we had an influx of dead carp on our Lake Erie Beaches because they had no air to breath and died. (some states banned phosphates but are still used in many other products)
Cocamidopropyl betaine – This one you will find in every green hand wash. Related with dermatitis and found in the EU to be harmful to aquatic life with lasting effects
Other ingredients to avoid
Sodium Benzoate – Can easily change into benzene, a known carcinogen
EDTA – not a detergent but found in some green foaming hand washes. Does not degrade/ breakdown and found in dirt and water. Not good!
Triclosan – Found in soaps that state it is antimicrobial – can covert easily to Dioxin which is highly toxic and cariogenic causes reproductive and development issues.
A detergent free soap is still a cleaning agent but more gentle and without all the left over harmful effects. It cleans and washes away all the bacteria, germs, dirt and grime. A detergent free soap is made from real plants, like olive, castor, sunflower, coconut (not coco-betaines those are detergents), and aloe. It uses a potassium sorbate (lye) blended with natural oils and butters, then cooked for hours. Just like they made soap before all the synthetic surfactants were manufactured. Synthetic surfactants are just cheap fillers that end up being a problem in the long run.
The soap bullets do not have added detergents and are made purely from plants. These easily biodegrade making it safe for the planet and are non-drying to hands.
The Soap Bullets are free from
Detergents - Triclosan – Phosphates – Parabens – Perfumes – Synthetic Surfactants – Sulfates – Plastics – Palm – EDTA- Phthalate
We are Vegan, Sustainable, Truly Plant Based, Hand-made, Women Owned and Operated with Earth Friendly Packaging and we never test on animals.
https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/handle/10289/3284
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9297986/
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