I do feel better the more I read... And I want to convince myself to use them, lol. There ate just so many brands and companies with so little information available. Are there specific companies that you guys know of that are more... Let's say, Health/environmentally conscious?
I know you're specifically talking about FO's, but I'll offer my two cents and maybe it will be helpful. :smile:
I'm still fairly new to the whole soaping thing and I came in wanting to go 'all natural'. After a lot of research, trial & error I've changed my thinking. I'm not saying that's a bad thing or you shouldn't, but I'll share my takeaway from my never-ending research.
'All natural', 'Environmentally friendly', 'chemical free' and anything in that general category are HUGE marketing buzzwords and some companies will stretch to the breaking point to slap it on their products.
To paraphrase one of the lovely folks here (please forgive me, I've long since forgotten who): 'arsenic is natural but that doesn't make it's safe'.
If you make B&B products you know that preservatives which are completely not natural make a product safer than if they were excluded (I understand even that can be controversial, but as far as I'm concerned I've seen enough to consider it a fact).
After looking at marketing of personal care products with a critical eye, I got a powerful reminder that companies tell you the things they think you want to hear in order to buy their product.
For example,
St. Ives Mission statement on Facebook says: St. Ives believes the most powerful ingredients can’t be created in a lab. In formulating our products, we use the most effective, fresh ingredients sourced from nature –
with no unnecessary chemicals.
First off, 'no unnecessary chemicals' is a ridiculous statement. As if other companies have the conversation "Our hand cream is fantastic, but the ingredients list is just too short. Go back to the lab, and find a few things that we have some extra of and throw them in..."
This is their ingredient list for
Hydrate Cucumber Melon Body Lotion
Ingredients:
Aqua, Glycerin, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Cetearyl Alcohol, Cetyl Alcohol, Glycine Soja (Soybean) Oil, Stearic Acid, Urea, Tocopheryl Acetate, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter, Cucumis Sativus (Cucumber) Fruit Extract, Cucumis Melo (Melon) Fruit Extract, Dimethicone, Cyclopentasiloxane, Cyclohexasiloxane, Carbomer, PEG-100 Stearate, Parfum, Triethanolamine, BHT, Phenoxyethanol, Methylisothiazolinone, Caprylyl Glycol, Disodium EDTA,
That reminds me, I should water my Methylisothiazolinone and Cyclopentasiloxane plants. :wink:
My Mother has a
bottle of Palmolive in her kitchen that says "Washes Away Bacteria from Hands" after I saw that I decided I needed to go look for some 'extra wet water' and possibly some light bulbs that 'brighten the darkness' if I could find them.
I know I'm picking on retail products and not suppliers, but at the end of the day it's the same thing. You have money to spend, they want it. Some companies will be upfront and honest, but you can't always tell who they are.
I've since decided to look at my ingredients individually not based on their source, but what they bring to the table and what if any risks they present. At the end of the day sometimes it still comes down to judgment, trial and error, because you can read 7 articles and get 15 different opinions. Still, that's part of the fun and the challenge to this kind of creative endeavor.
