27 Oct What’s in that shampoo and could it be slowly killing you?
I was recently in Melbourne, presenting to a group of people on WashBar products – telling them how lovely and natural they are. I’d put up a Powerpoint slide on an award winning commercial puppy shampoo that was available in most pet stores. I’d put the slide together as a graphic way of showing how natural, simple and safe our puppy shampoo was – the competitors shampoo contains 23 ingredients, incredibly nearly half of them (11) are on the nasty list – these are ingredients you wouldn’t want to use on yourself so why would you use them on a puppy?
I often find when I’m talking to people it makes it more real if I make it a little more personal – to really drive the message home. The hotel we were all staying in had a great selection of complimentary bathroom goods, and I’d checked out the ingredients in the shampoo and body wash to help illustrate my point. These are the little bottles you find in every hotel bathroom. We are encouraged to use them if we have forgotten our own shampoo, conditioner or soap. Many of them are branded cleverly to seem natural and primo quality. The ingredients in the bottles at this hotel were very dodgy – they had many of the 11 ingredients I was highlighting in my slide. This isn’t unusual – I’ve yet to find any Hotel Shampoos that aren’t loaded with nasties, and I’ve stayed at some pretty nice hotels in my time.
Most of the group staying at the hotel had seen the complimentary bottles – they nodded their heads to show their interest but it wasn’t until the next day that I had people coming up to me to let me know I had put them in a difficult position. Now they knew what was in the bottles they had to make informed choices – most choosing to avoid the hotel shampoo.
Ironically, I discovered I had forgotten my own shampoo and I found myself using our dog soap on my hair rather than the complimentary bottles containing ingredients known to cause cancer in animals (Cocamide DEA), banned for in use in cosmetics use in Germany (Methylisothiazolinone), and others with equally nasty synthetics. It’s tough being an informed consumer!
So the next time you’re thinking of using the little hotel bottles (or taking them home with you) check out the ingredients – you might want to leave them behind as you are also now an informed consumer …