True to our style, we are back with another post encouraging you to think, live and breathe sustainable. This time we are talking about soap!
Soap is an everyday commodity in our lives, we wash our hands, our bodies and our clothes with different variations of soap so it’s important to know what we’re using and the effects of it.
Here are some ingredients in regular soaps.
- Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS)
- Triclosan
- Parabens
- Ethanolamine Compounds
Everyone sees the long chemically sounding ingredients but not everyone understands and knows what they mean or what they can do to you, so people just ignore it. And we don’t blame you! We have also fallen prey to the trap of ignoring what you don’t understand.
Now for the ingredients above, let me tell you why these can be harmful and why you should avoid buying soap with them in.
- Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) is a foaming agent. This is used in household and industrial strength cleaning products. It can be incredibly irritating!
- Triclosan is an endocrine-disrupting chemical. That means it can harm your endocrine system, leading to issues with proper hormone function, particularly your thyroid gland which can mess up all sorts of things in your body! It can affect weight, energy, skin, hair, and nail growth as well as metabolism!
- Parabens – Similar to Triclosan, parabens are used to preserve cosmetics but can also lead to hormone imbalances in regards to fertility in both men and women!
- Ethanolamine Compounds – These are used to get rid of dirt, grease and stains. As many of you would know this means that they have to be super tough products. Using corrosive products on your skin should not be something we are told to do!
Okay! Now we’ve discussed why mass-produced soap isn’t necessarily the best thing for you, let’s talk about what is good for you.
Natural Handmade Soaps are usually made by smaller companies with customers instead of profits in mind! This also means that the ingredients they use are better and avoid using all those nasty chemicals we’ve just talked about. Some ingredients of natural organic soaps include glycerine that helps moisturise the skin, coconut oil, shea butter and tallow which are all believed to be much healthier for your skin without all the synthetic ingredients added!
Natural Organic Soaps are easy enough to find with a small google search or trip down to the local town and a conversation with small business owners and Sustainability enthusiasts like us! At Studio Pips we also have ranges of natural organic soaps so check them out!
Thanks for reading this post, we hope that this has helped you get to know what’s in your products!