What do bubble baths and degreasing your car engine have in common?
For years of my life I’ve been mislead to thinking that if my toothpaste wasn’t foaming my teeth weren’t getting cleaned and if my dish soap wasn’t forming a mountain of bubbles my plates just didn’t feel clean. I found out recently from listening to a podcast on Stuff You Should Know that this foaming effect more or less just creates the impression of cleanliness that in effect help the product sell.
Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) is a surfactant, in simpler terms it’s a foaming agent that’s commonly found not only in our daily personal care products such as shampoos, soaps, toothpastes, and detergents but also in a garage where it’s used to dissolve the grease in car engines.
While it degreases car engines, you could imagine what it does to your skin. Do you ever notice that your hands are awfully dry after washing a load of dishes? Well that’s SLS doing its charm in dissolving the oils in your skin. A report in the journal of the American College of Toxicology showed that even concentrations of 0.5% could cause irritation and that concentrations of 10-30% caused skin corrosion and severe irritation. It is known to denature skin proteins causing not only irritation but creates easy access for environmental contaminants into sensitive layers of the skin. It has been documented that SLS can lead to a variety of health implications as well.
Is this an ethical way to market?