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Shampoos

07 August 2007

Did you know that L’Oreal, the famous cosmetics manufacturer, makes a ‘Kids 2 in 1’ shampoo for children, marketed as “extra gentle”? What do you imagine it contains? Since it’s for kids, you’d think it would be using only the safest ingredients. And since it claims to be ‘extra gentle’, you’d expect it to be made up of the finest, least hazardous ingredients.

Wrong on all counts. Astonishingly, ‘L’Oreal Kids 2 in 1 shampoo, extra gentle, burst of fruity apricot’ is among the most toxic shampoos on the market.

For a start, it’s chock-full of lauryl sulphates, one of the most potentially carcinogenic compounds in the entire ‘personal-care’ industry and, yet, one that is found in almost every leading shampoo. What do the lauryl sulphates do? In the trade, they are known as surfactant or detergent ‘degreasers’; they also make shampoo nice and foamy. But, in fact, they’re far from nice. A Cornell University report published 20 years ago warned hairdressers to beware...

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