Article: - What you DON'T want to put on your skin!
We’re sure you will have noticed by now that we have lots of gorgeous organic skin care products to allow you to pamper yourself and look after your skin naturally.
You will find nothing but good stuff, like organic essential oils and natural plant extracts, in our Organic Young products. That’s because we are so strict about what goes onto your skin.
Sadly, lots of the big cosmetic companies out there aren’t so concerned, and there are some nasty chemicals which may well have found their way into your wash bag. You might want to grab it and take a look at what you have been using on your skin whilst you read the rest of this article.
Here are some of the chemicals which you’ll never ever find in our organic skin care products – they really are banned from our development lab!
Sodium Lauryl Sulphate
Yuck! This one is really horrible and it gets put in nearly everything that foams. Ever had dry hands after using a liquid soap? Regularly get mouth ulcers or sore gums? Suffer from an itchy, dry scalp? That could all be down to Sodium Lauryl Sulphate. In fact, we’ll just call it SLS as that is a lot quicker.
SLS is drying on the skin and is recognised around the world as being a known skin irritator. Yuk!
What to check for SLS: Shampoo, Shower Gel, Liquid Soap, Toothpaste
Parabens
You’ll probably find that lots of your skin care products have ingredients in with long chemical names ending in -paraben. Parabens are a group of chemicals which are used as preservatives in skin creams, shampoos, shaving gels, deodorants and many other teenage toiletries.
They have been shown in some lab studies to have a mild hormone-like action – and not necessarily in a good way! We don’t know enough about them to know exactly what they do but you’ve probably had enough of those pesky teenage hormones to last you a lifetime though, so you better leave those alone.
What to check for Parabens: Your whole collection of toiletries!
Aluminium
Aluminium – that doesn’t sound so bad, right? At least it is pronounceable. It is a common ingredient in antiperspirants because it works by clogging up the pores under your arm, stopping the sweat from getting out. Well, sweat isn’t exactly nice but as with lots of things – better out than in!
But did you know that sweat doesn’t actually smell bad? It is actually breeding bacteria that make BO. If you can control the bacteria – which you can do with natural ingredients – you don’t even need pore-clogging aluminium!
We use something called ammonium alum in our organic deodorants which contains a tiny bit of aluminium but don’t worry, it is not the stuff that congests your pores.
What to check for aluminium chloride/chlorohydrate: Deodorant
Parfum
Now we bet that you’ll find this listed as an ingredient in nearly every shampoo, skin cream and deodorant you own. And probably the rest of your toiletries too. Parfum is perfume, which in turn is usually a load of chemicals which happen to smell pleasant together.
Companies which make skin care products can list “parfum” to cover all these chemicals. When you see the word parfum, therefore, you don’t know what it contains – it may be synthetic, natural or a mixture of the two. Companies that have nothing to hide will generally list the fragrance ingredients that they use, just like we do.
Because there are so many chemicals needed to make each parfum, this is a really common cause of allergies. If any of your skin care products make your eyes water or your skin itch, parfum could be the reason.
Don’t worry though, just because we don’t like parfum it doesn’t mean our products don’t have any scent. In fact, OY! products smell just great thanks to natural essential oils.
What to check for parfum: Your whole collection of toiletries.