If you happen to be unable to use products with sodium laureth sulphate because you have an allergy, the good news is that there are now plenty of alternatives available. Making that ingredient out to be bad for everyone, because "it is used in higher concentrations in garage floor cleaners" (I suppose garage floors can get greasy, so why not use an effective surfactant?) or because sodium laureth sulphate can cause irritation in some people is silly.
People can be allergic to anything. Just because someone gets a rash when they eat strawberries (a person I would feel very sorry for), doesn't mean we all have to stop eating strawberries, or that strawberries should be removed from all food and cosmetics and declared evil and toxic. There are even people who are allergic to plain water.
There is a very virulent myth about sodium laureth sulphate out there. This myth has penetrated traditional and online media to such a degree that researchers now quote it as gospel. Those who dig a little deeper usually find out that it's a hoax, but the makers of this programme did not.
Sodium laureth sulphate is an effective de-greaser and very bubbly - lovely when used correctly - but not suitable for eating or for products that stay on your skin for a long time. I have seen it used in body lotions, which did not seem like a good idea, but when used in a shower gel, or any product that gets rinsed off, it's perfectly safe. It can be a skin irritant (but most people don't react to it) and if ingested, it can cause a stomach upset. That's about it. The SLS-is-bad myth started as an online hoax chain email some years ago. There is suspicion that the myth was started by a source intending to market "sodium laureth sulphate free" products.
Regurgitating other people's marketing messages, generating deliberate hoaxes for profits, badly researched publicity releases and repeating easily obtained anecdotal data makes things so much easier, not to mention has the added credibility of having been repeated via various sources to such a degree that when a consumer is exposed to it, they think "oh yes, I saw that mentioned somewhere else too, so it must be true."
One of the other main claims in the programme was that parabens are bad for you. (Even though when you closely listen to the script, the main statements are: "Parabens are preservatives used widely in food, cosmetics and toiletries. They are man-made chemicals. They can be found in your urine.")
Article comments