SC Johnson's "Fragrance Palette"
Recently I decided that it was time to clean out the shelves under the bathroom sink. I read every ingredient on bottles and containers of mousse, hair spray, toothpaste, face powder and soaps. My goal was to get rid of anything that I wouldn't eat. I looked at my cheap blush and it did not list the ingredients so I went to the Rimmel website. The handy powder that I was used to using to make my cheeks glow had this in it:
3 IN 1 POWDER BLUSH INGREDIENTS: MICA, TALC, DIMETHICONE, CAPRYLIC/CAPRIC TRIGLYCERIDE, MAGNESIUM STEARATE, ETHYLHEXYL DIMETHYL PABA, ALOE BARBADENSIS LEAF EXTRACT, ISOPROPYLPARABEN, BUTYLPARABEN, ISOBUTYLPARABEN, [MAY CONTAIN/ PEUT CONTENIR/+/-: TITANIUM DIOXIDE (CI 77891), IRON OXIDES (CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499), D&C RED NO. 30 ALUMINUM LAKE (CI 73360), D&C RED NO. 7 CALCIUM LAKE (CI 15850), ULTRAMARINES (CI 77007), D&C RED NO. 6 BARIUM LAKE (CI15850), FERRIC FERROCYANIDE (CI 77510), CARMINE (CI 75470), FD&C BLUE NO. 1 ALUMINUM LAKE (CI 42090), D&C RED NO. 28 ALUMINUM LAKE (CI 45410), D&C YELLOW NO. 5 ALUMINUM LAKE (CI 19140)].
It went in the trash, along with 25 other items.
So now I wash my hair with borax and rinse it with citric acid and water, I use beet powder for blush, and my toothpaste is cobalt-free.
One thing that I hadn't yet tossed was my Shout Triple-Acting Formula that 'clings, penetrates and lifts away stains', because I found it, well, useful.
But this morning I dragged it upstairs (after one last squirt onto my stained jeans) to peruse its ingredients online.
I hand it to SC Johnson, for at least making an effort at telling people it uses only the best ingredients for my family's health (its website shows a very happy mother and daughter using Windex to clean their window together), and for listing its ingredients publicly. Here are Shout's ingredients.
Ethoxylated Alcohol
Polyacrylate Polymer
Citric Acid
Sodium Borate
Sodium Hydroxide
Acrylic Copolymer
Benzoisothiazolinone
Subtilisin
Fragrance from SC Johnson Fragrance Palette
Dodecanol
I could even click on the 'Fragrance' ingredient to see what that was made of. I read:
We don’t specify the ingredients in each particular SC Johnson fragrance because we see those as secret recipes. But we do share our full fragrance palette, to make it possible for those with allergies or concerns about a particular ingredient to see if it might be used.
And the next page brought up the letters A to Z, where I could click and find all the chemicals alphabetically. I'm particularly interested in the solvent propyl alcohol, which inhibits microbial growth and extends product shelf life, but is suspected of being a hormone disrupter and possibly a carcinogenic substance. So I clicked on 'P' and read this list:
These chemicals make it pretty tough for our bodies to do what they need to do to keep us healthy. It is little wonder why our livers are struggling to keep up, why chronic disease is rampant, and why people are taking billions of medications for their symptoms. What really would be helpful is to remove the chemicals from our lives, and detoxify them from our bodies.
My handy bottle of Shout Triple Acting is going in the garbage can outside.
