For Our Health and the Health of Our Children: The Dangers of Sodium Lauryl Sulfate

Have you ever considered that there are hidden dangers in the products you use every day on your face and/or body?  Would you be surprised if a chemical in those products was hurting you and your children's eyes, heart, liver, and brain, day after day after day?  Well, there is, and it is: sodium lauryl sulfate.   

Generally speaking, this is a cooking blog, but I am all about all things health concious and factoids that can help us lead healthier, safe lives.  My topic today is the dangers of sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS).  It is an ingredient in most, but not all, cosmetic cleansers, hair shampoos, bath and shower gels, bubble baths, and more. 

Healthy-communications.com states "[SLS] is probably the most dangerous ingredient used in skin and hair-care products. In the cleaning industry SLS is used in garage floor cleaners, engine degreasers, car-wash soaps, etc. It is very corrosive and readily attacks greasy surfaces. 

Sodium lauryl sulfate is used throughout the world for clinical testing as a primary skin irritant. Laboratories use it to irritate skin on test animals and humans so that they may then test healing agents to see how effective they are on the irritated skin. 

A study at the University of Georgia Medical College, indicated that SLS penetrated into the eyes as well as brain, heart, liver, etc., and showed long-term retention in the tissues. The study also indicated that SLS penetrated young children's eyes and prevented them from developing properly and caused cataracts to develop in adults.

May cause hair loss by attacking the follicle. Classified as a drug in bubble baths because it eats away skin protection and causes rashes and infection to occur."

For all you non-believers out there, here is a link to the study that was performed in 1983 and published in the Journal of the American College of Toxicology.

Also, here is an amazing article by David Steinman addressing this issue of sodium lauryl sulfate and giving lots more detail than I am outlining here in this blog. 

If you are at home reading this, I challenge you to get up from your computer right now and look on the bottle of your favorite products--chances are, it is one of the first ingredients. There are plenty of organic products available that are SLS-free. We would all do well to chuck our items with SLS in them, for our health and the health of our children.