STRONG WARNING: chemicals in hair products

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I'm no expert so I don't know about SLS and it's effects (and I'm too lazy to read...) but I do know that PPD in hair dyes is really bad. It's (apparently) banned in the US but not in all of Europe and it can cause severe allergic reactions. You're supposed to do patch tests 48 hours before you put the stuff on your hair but in quite a few cases now in the UK it hasn't worked. Other people can tolerate it for a while but then have a sudden reaction.

Hence the reason I stopped dying my hair black...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... -rise.html

This isn't the article I read but it's similar enough...

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I have HFA, ADHD, OCD & Tourette syndrome. I love animals, especially my bunnies and hamster. I skate in a roller derby team (but I'll try not to bite )

I have never really cared to look at what is in my shampoo. Don't use much skin care products (just soap actually) and no other hair products. However, I have heard indeed that washing your hair too often would get rid of your hair's protective layer, or whatever it is called. So I don't wash my hair every day.

I just had to run to the bathroom and look, my Alveda hair products don't have
any (SLES) or (SLS), but in Dove 2 in 1 SLES is the first thing on the label.
Does anyone know if any of the Bodyshops products have these chemicals.

Yes they do.

Anyone know a place that sells non-SLS products in the UK?

That's one of the reasons that I went back to my unisex 1960s hair, apart from being a die hard Kinks fan.

The cleanser we use for body, hair and home is called Miracle II. I get it online somewhere. My hair is also now very silky, curly without frizz, and managable. I quit using commercial shampoo a few years ago and finally cut off all the hair that had all the coloring and chemicals in it. I am now enjoying short, healthy, easy to care for hair. I also use tea bags in my bath to soak my hair and oilive oil treatments in the bath or combed through hair 30 or more min before washing out. Natural is the way to go! I was motivated by allergy issues, however, all my family and I have benefited from giving up the old commercial hand, body, hair care. My children also have better hair, more managable. My girls have beautiful waves that showed up when I stopped weighing it down with commercial conditioners. Lots of great benefits to getting away from chemicals in every area of our life. We just don't realize how much we ingest through our skin, lungs and digestive tract. Every little bit helps detoxify our body and also our brain. If you can live without the foamy personal products, by all means leave them alone. If you just love your color or shampoo, hopefully one could then find another area to cut toxins from their life.

Good post, glad to see the info out there especially put out by a young lady learning about chemistry. That warms my heart! Makes me wonder if my own daughters will herald truths such as these someday from what I've taught them growing up and what they learn here in our "school" at home. I think warning others of what they may not know is a great aspiration. A lot of people just don't think about these kinds of things.

There are many retailers for this as with Tupperware or Mary Kay. You can likely find another retailer fairly easily. It is pretty amazing stuff, from a standpoint of gentleness and giving what it claims I can back it up all the way. I can wash out my eyes with that stuff, yet it will get grease off and also clean paint off brushes. Amazing stuff. Very cost effective with foaming pumps that lets air do the foaming rather than chemicals. I also personalize the soap or liquid neutrelizer with essencial oils and various natural oils such as jojoba and almond. I love what I make at home with the Miracle II as the base way better than anything in store, for sure.

My hair stylist told me a few years back that there was no reason to use shampoo, other than the desire to have lather. She said just use conditioner to clean my hair instead.

It's worked fabulously. Dry scalp issues vanished.

Ok, so I think I've developed a small obsession with natural products in the last few weeks.. I have found quite a decent looking company called Faith In Nature in the UK, and the prices are very reasonable considering most places I found were charging nearly £10 a bottle of shampoo! I'm going to place an order with them tomorrow when I get paid. Here's hoping my irritated scalp and sensitive skin will benefit.

On the subject of Sodium laureth sulphate, I have stopped buying toothpaste containing it (very rare toothpaste) in the hope that it was the reason I was getting mouth ulcers. So far so good, and its been a few months, but that could be a co-incidence.