Harsh chemical cocktails/personal hygiene and other household products are a multi, multi-billion dollar business, and are part of our everyday grooming rituals (for most), but do we really need all these fancy concoctions to improve the quality, and cleanliness in our lives? Were our ancestors any worse off with regular soap? Should we be interfering with the delicate balance that our own bodies have evolved into over billions of years? Are these chemical cocktails responsible in part for rising cancer rates and other diseases?
Speaking strictly from a naturalist perspective, one could deduce that the addition of man-made chemicals into a balanced complex eco-system (our bodies) can essentially do “nothing good”, and upset the natural balance and results in essentially “unknown consequences” in the long-term. You don’t need a Ph.D in Biology or Genetics to recognize the fact that washing your washing your face or hair with a product with ingredients that are almost unpronounceable isn’t a good thing. Let’s take a few of the following common ingredients found in hygiene prodcuts, and repeat after me: “Triethanolamine, Diethanolamine, Imidazolidinyl, Diazolidinyl, Behentrimonium Chloride, Sodium Laureth Sulfate”.
Bring it on.
This, and coupled with the sheer number, and combinations of chemicals used to groom ourselves from skin moisturizers, make-up, aftershave, toothpaste, and detergents the long-term effects on our bodies are a literal question mark.
But wait you say, there are “sensitive versions” of the chemical cocktails we have grown to know and love. Pharmaceutical companies have been putting out “regular” versions of their products for decades and over the past few years a sudden influx of “sensitive” versions of your favorite brands from skin care, laundry detergent, to toothpaste which have materialized. One could argue that the usage of the cornucopia of different chemicals we use every day MAY, just may, be contributing to a great deal of adverse health effects in the long term.
Is there really a point in using anything other than the “sensitive” versions of any particular product, especially when it comes to personal hygiene? Let’s take skin care for example. Why would anyone choose any other version of a product other than the “sensitive” version?
(Manly Man Jones) “Yes, I’ll take this maximum industrial strength 10 grit energizing twin-turbo body wash which takes off a couple layers off my hide — I can take it baby! Why would I consider a sensitive version that is less toxic and keeps the natural balance on my skin intact?” Quite frankly, if a skin care product is good enough for a baby, it sure as hell is good enough for an adult.
At the end of the day, it all boils down to revenue generation for the big corporations, who spend hundreds of millions on marketing campaigns to push products on you that you don’t really need – always trying to outpace and out innovate their competitors, to increase profits for their shareholders at the expense of the public.
Company X: “Well, with the rising cases of class-action lawsuits, we better release a version of this deodorant with less toxic chemicals that we have heavily invested in to still turn a profit from the unwashed masses.” Pun intended.
We all rely on personal hygiene products in one way or another, and are almost unavoidable if you wish to maintain any type of contact with people, without them running away from you in terror, ensure you can at least pronounce all the ingredients on the label. But it’s always fun to stand there in the store, and try to pronounce these chemical formulations out loud.
