Sodium Laureth Sulfate - I'm so disgusted!

all our cleaning products are amway (both body & house), only 1 body product from Amway (Artistry) has SLS in it (which is an adult shower gel). They also do an organic baby range which my MIL swears by for her foster kids (who usually come to her in a bad way as she is an emergency foster carer).

I've already threatened that when we have kids and visitors come bearing gifts that have J&J in it they will be made to drink it - there is no way stuff like that is going near my babies skins.

If I'm not using amway on my skin then I'm using soap I've made myself.

I don't worry so much about cleaning products (well.. mainly coz I use so few, coz I use enjo) but also because detergent is detergent and is useful for cleaning stuff. I just don't like putting detergent on my skin. So I use gloves when I wash up or if I use a cleaning product.

Aromababy have some lovely products. Gaia didn't agree with mine or DS's skin.. and DH said there is still a 'questionable' ingredient in it.. as in they still use a surfactant.. just a 'naturally derived' one. pfft. But it's surfactants that strip the skin of it's oils and cause dryness and irritation.

Natural Instinct is good and you can get it in some health food shops.

I like Natural Instinct too. I get it from the local chemist.

Someone mentioned sorbolene. Stay away from that too. It's full of dangerous chemicals - there was an article on a news website last week about how it can cause skin irritation.

Hate to tell you ladies, but Natural Instinct still contains chemicals.

DEA (Diethanolamine)is listed as being in their shampoo and it's also thought to cause cancer. Coco Diethanolamine is a variant of this chemical.
Studies have also shown it directly inhibits fetal brain development in mice.
DEA is also associated with miscarriages in lab studies.

It also has coco betaine in it which can cause contact dermatitis.

It also contains suttocide. Now I'm not sure if this is the same as suttocide A but it could well be. Suttocide A is a formaldehyde releasing preservative. For those of you who don't know formaldehyde is the reason all clothing comes with a label telling you to "wash before first use". It's used to set dies with most clothing. When you wear new clothes without washing them first you are exposing yourself to this dangerous chemical. It's also contained in cigarette smoke, nail polish, household cleaners and cosmetics. So it looks like this ingredient is probably also bad for you.

I think the only way of having pure items is to make them yourself. It's quite time consuming but I used to do it. It cured me of the rashes and asthma I was suffering at the time. If I can find my old books on this subject I'll post some recipes up for you to try. Pretty much all companies use chemicals of some kind, they just disguise the names so you don't realise.

I forgot to mention that I buy a lot of products from a company called Moo Goo, which is a small cottage industry here in Australia (started up in WA moved to QLD I think) that is committed to healthy hair and skin products that are as chemical free as possible. They make an excellent baby scalp cream and a lovely shampoo. On their web site they go into great detail about how most chemicals like SLS affect you. They are very committed to making the safest products possible and most are safe enough to drink, but they admit they would taste disgusting LOL

I've been nagging DH to make liquid shampoos and soaps lol.. but he doesn't want to get into it, coz in order for a liquid soap/shampoo to have good cleansing properties you have to start compromising the naturalness (is that a word? LOL) of the product, such as adding surfactants etc (even naturally derived), and then these ingredients need to be countered with something else etc etc.

I've heard of Moo Goo, Bath - just looked at their stuff. DH was looking into putting milk into some of our soaps, but we've heard it STINKS while you're making the soap LOL. I'm in no state to have a stinky kitchen! hehe.

I'm also in the throes of learning about natural preservatives and antioxidants, just not finding the time to make anything new at the moment!

I saw a thing on tv the other day about what's in cosmetics.. all the formaldehyde etc. Scary stuff!

Oh the MooGoo soaps smell divine Liz! Like vanilla and they are incredibly popular. They often run out of stock and you have to wait at least 3 months before they are selling them again because they need to mature for at least that long after making. I always stock up.

It is SO hard, because when you start looking around you see this may not have something but has something else. I am slowly finding a good range of things that we like, yes some may still have some natural sufactants but I think that overall it is a lot better than getting the commercial brands. It is a little trade off but we have to find things that also suit our skin etc...

We use no soap in the kids baths if we do need soap I use dermaveen generally, also I use this for their hair, generally cause they are so sensitive they have reacted to everything else. I have no idea what is in it, but we don't use it that often and also it is the only thing KWIM?

I use gaia powder (again only occaisionally) and moisturiser when needed. I have californian baby room spray.

For cleaning I use Pure Earth products you can get them from the internet, as well as cinderella products you can get from the internet too. I also use Pure Earth essential oils.

Personally for me I use OmVeda which is a really nice ayurvedic treatments, has moisturisers and face cleansers etc...

We eat as much organic as possible, but again hard to always do. What I am trying to do is find a balance between what is possible for me to achieve with my family and what is best, sometimes I have to settle for something in between, but it has done my head in trying to get everything right.

With J and J, I had so much stuff from Cooper and he was reacting to it, he was so dry etc... so I did a bit of research and was horrified to find out what is actually in that stuff and where it comes from. I took it all back, the used and unused to Target and they gave me a credit for it all. It is a shame that just because they have a big name they think they can get away with poisoning our kids.

Aveeno is made by J and J.

the miessence roll-on deoderant is great!!! its all natural and doesnt contain "aluminium" in it like 99% of deoderants do and its thought to be a possible cause (1 of) of breast cancer. so be careful of that one too.

geez the list is endless when it comes to products to avoid.....

i LOVE the health store "Go Vita" they have great brands of healthy products to use. but always check the back of each one still as even if its in a health food store it can still contain some ingredients which may not be good for us iykwim

Natural Instinct - i was using their shampoo and conditioner at one stage but its AWFUL and makes your hair really dry and oily... also the face wash is disgusting and makes your face feel really coated and greasy so i may aswell throw the products out as i dont really use them anymore....

hehe Bath- I'm sure they smell lovely! It's when you're making it that it apparently stinks :)

Scarlet - I agree - small trade off having the natural surfactants in order to have liquid soaps & shampoos.. but DH won't go there coz it's still too drying for the skin. Even natural products have their different properties - like coconut oil is very drying too. I'd LOVE to have them in our range one day tho.. I'll keep working on him LOL. I think some of our range will be limited to what DH likes to use.. which is fair enough I suppose. At least we know it's tried and tested! He uses a shampoo bar, lathers it up and washes his hair. He uses product in his hair every day, and it gets it out well. I'm just too lazy to use a bar for shampoo.. I want my liquid shampoo! hehehe.

Hi Celsie - when DS was 3mth old he used to wake 20min after his bath screaming after ruling out colic and reflux and things from my diet we discovered it was none other than the lavender bedtime bath that was irritating him. He didn't have soap in his bath until he was about 2/3yrs old. Honestly they don't get that dirty that a bit of water can't wash off. We did try some homemade soaps but didn't have much success with them but I think there is a lot more on the market these days with the current trends towards chemicals in beauty treatments. Good luck

It can be very hard to be totally natural, and as Liz pointed out it can be hard to come up with a pleasing result to the consumer.

You can make your own stuff - it's great and easy once you learn to properly blend stuff, but you have to take extra care, be very clean (of course) when making it and often need to keep it refrigerated.

You MUST have preservatives in products or it will go off. The consumer doesn't want to have to chill stuff, or replace it each week. The product must be visually pleasing, feel and smell good. It;s very hard to find a balance and harder to do it "naturally". It also need to survive repeated contamination. Every time you dip your fingers into a jar of moisturiser, you leave behind dust and skin cells. Perfect for growing bacteria. Yuk.

Mass production is the problem - we need preservatives in everything becuase we can't/won't make the products ourselves anymore. ALL food, unless you grow it yourself or is certified organic has been treated in some way with chemicals. It need to be hardy enough to survive picking/packing and transportation across the country. You could probably bounce most of Coles' fruit and veg section without bruising it.....

Thanks for the heads up ladies :)Mostly I wash my kids in rain water, nothing added, but I do have a bottle of J&J baby soothing naturals for when the are really dirty, when I started reading this thread I went straight to the bathroom to look at it's ingredients, most of them don't look to natural to me, does anyone know what PEG-80 Sorbitan Laurate is ?

Peg is polyethelene glycol, which is used as anti freeze in refrigerators and such, not so nice on a babies skin.

This is a nicer definition of it:

PEG-80 Sorbitan Laurate: This is a detergent-like chemical that
functions as a surfactant. Basically that means that it serves as a
"wetting agent" to help reduce surface tension in the water and
promote smooth spreading of the shampoo. This is a gentler surfactant
than the chemical that is used in many shampoos, sodium lauryl
sulfate. Surfactants help to remove grease and cleanse the hair. Some
are mild, some are harsh; Johnson's Baby Shampoo has several of the
milder surfactants in its ingredients.

"Nonionics such as polyethylene glycol (PEG) esters can play a number
of roles in a shampoo system. For example, PEG-80 sorbitan laurate
promotes mild cleansing..."

Applications: Reduces irritancy of baby shampoos and children's bath
care products."

I do the same as you rosehannah when I wash them in water generally and have no problems with it.

Thanks for the info. Scarlet, I still think that I might try and find something else! I saw on a TV show a few months ago a lady that was producing goats milk soap, apparently they were having trouble with their sons skin (eczema) and they had trouble finding something on the market that would work, so they made it.
I just went and looked it up it's called Billy goats soap, has anyone used it? It said it uses natural ingedients but I couldn't find a list just now.

You only need preservatives in waterbased compounds. Soaps don't need it, and balms, which are just a blend of oils usually only need antioxidants to prevent the oils themselves going off and losing their properties, vitamin E is a popular antioxidant. Vegetable oils don't provide an environment for bacteria to grow.

rosehannah - they have their ingredients listed on their website, but it's spelled billie goats soap. Couldn't find ingredients for their bars of soap tho, but they have them for their liquid soap.