What's in your shampoo? Part 2 - Parabens

Dear Readers,

Let's resume our journey through Shampoo making by looking at one ingredient that has lead manufacturers to misery and consumers to awareness: Parabens.
Note that this ingredient is present in most cosmetics, not only shampoos.
Scientific literature is R.I.C.H. with articles about Parabens and throughout my reading, I probably had doubts a few times as to their safe use. In the end, I compiled a lot of information here below and if you are concerned about them and want to really know what is it about, then - although I know it's long! - it is really worth to read it all!!! I am not your doctor nor your GP, and will not tell you if it's good or bad, if you should ban Parabens from your life or not, I think it is important that you should formulate your personal opinion. I laid out all the latest research for you to do so. I hope you find this informative. Personally, after reading it all, I know I don't need to worry anymore!

You can catch up with the first instalment of this mini-series here: Shampoo making recipe

Parabens

Structure

Parabens are a group of esters of 4-hydroxybenzoic acid only differing from one another in the ester part of the molecule (fig.1: here represented by R).

Figure 1. Paraben structure. From Soni et al, 2005

What's in your Shampoo? Part 1 - Recipe

Hello and Welcome back on Science Is So Sexy. For you, my faithful readers, I have changed the layout to a more sexy one, and you might have noticed I purchased the domain name www.sciencesosexy.com, so it's easier to share the address with your friends!!! Exciting times, indeed!!

For our next post, I will concentrate on a request from Caffeinated OC Mommy.

Here it is:

I'm in the process of looking for healthy alternatives for shampoos, conditioners, body/face moisturizers. I'm learning that the cosmetic industry has no standards and are allowed to package their products with the words, "natural" or good for you type words that are not necessarily true. But because they monitor themselves, they can put what they want. 

Soooooooo Darling, I'm constantly spending money on products hoping to find my match in natural, green, and just all around better for me and my family. I look for products that say stuff like... 

No:Parabens, Phthalates, Sodium Lauryl/Laureth Sulfate, Sodium Methyl Sulfate. 

I have NO idea how to pronounce these words let alone know what these even mean. 

And I'm also learning about petro in these products as well? 

What's a girl to do? Am I on the right track by avoiding these words I can't pronounce? 

Dear Darling,

Following your request, and similar ones from many of my readers, I decided to concentrate my research on shampoos. Please note that many of the ingredients are similar for body/face moisturizers and conditioners so you can still find lots of information here.

I, myself,went to a Natural Food shop and purchased a natural shampoo (from Avalon Organics). And true to your words, the mention NO parabens, phtalates, SLS, SMS were written on the bottle!!

So of course I wondered, as so many of you do, why are they putting these ingredients in shampoos in the first place if we can avoid them?

Are they replaced by expensive/cheap alternatives, how does it influence the efficiency of a product and ultimately its commercial price?

I had a lot of thought on how to present to you what I found out about it all. It turned out that there is so much information, I might have to do a new mini-series, simply for the sake of keeping post length reasonable - and therefore interest alive!!!

So, the first thing I looked at is the "normal" composition of a shampoo:

Shampoo Making Recipe

From HERE 

Chemicals in our make up - Part 4: Lipstick

Dear Readers,

Here is the 4th instalment of our mini-series Chemicals in our make up focusing on Lipstick!!! 

The request was originally from Bibil, and inspired by an earlier posts about Eczema and cosmetics products: What are the Chemicals in our Make up?

You can catch up the first three instalments here Part 1: Foundation, Part 2: Eye shadow and Part 3: Mascara

Lipstick