Sunday, March 21, 2010

made of green ingredients

France, afternoon

I am a big, big fan of The Body Shop.

I love some of their shampoos and air conditioning (e.g. the honey one and the olive oil), all the things of the white musk, the new grapefruit body butter and shower gel, I like the philosophy (e.g., the products are not tested on animals, a lot of products support community trade). Every time I visited a The Body Shop magazine, I always find a way to buy something. I consider it my way of spoiling myself.

But, because I started looking at each ingredient of some product of another "green" brand, Yves Rocher, I got to do the same for The Body Shops products I have. And I realized something, these products do contain botanical ingredients, but they are also full of chemicals. I am not sure what all these chemicals do to our health, but their names are scary. So, just as an experiment, I took one of these products, and checked on internet a few of the chemicals ingredients contained in there. Of course, as quantities of each compound are not indicated, there is no way to actually know what it is the percentage of botanical ingredients versus purely chemical ingredients. Fortunately, my research on internet revealed that the chemicals ingredients of the products I have at home (from Yves Rocher and The Body Shop) are not toxic or dangerous (more or less) based on current available data.

Here a few of the chemicals I have been looking up on the web:

Cyclomethicone: While silicons such as cyclomethicone do not appear to have adverse effects on the human body, there are many concerns regarding the harmful effects it may have on the environment (i.e. marine life). For this reason, many countries like Canada have requested the silicone industry to provide more information and scientific data regarding its safety.

Methylparaben and propylparaben: used as antimicrobial preservatives in foods, drugs and cosmetics for over 50 years. Readily absorbed via the gastrointestinal tract and dermis. There is no evidence of accumulation. Acute toxicity studies in animals indicate that they are relatively non-toxic by both oral and parenteral routes, although mildly irritating to the skin. Not carcinogenic, mutagenic or clastogenic.

Butylphenyl methylproprional: it is a skin irritant and there have been tests that found that skin applications of this product at high concentrations in animals caused sperm damage.


PS. If you know a website where to find all the info about chemicals substances used in food and cosmetics let me know because I am very interested on the topic.

1 comment:

Portlandier said...

I love the body shop! Interesting chemicals that are in it though...