How safe is your hand soap?

(note: this got quite long, but I found out some interesting things that you might want to be aware of. The way to make your own hand soap is at the bottom.)

In switching over to toxic-free homemade products around my house, another really easy, no-brainer was the hand soap.

I thought about simply posting the two-ingredient "recipe" for hand soap, but I want to do just a little bit more. It's easy to say we're replacing the store-bought stuff because of all these chemicals we keep talking about. But why specifically should we avoid it? What exactly is in that stuff and do we (ever) want to use it on our hands?

So I did two things. I looked at the labels on the bottles of store-bought hand soap that I have in the house (which are now the old bottles refilled with the good stuff) and I did a google search - "what is bad about hand soap."

I want to start with what I learned doing the google search. A lot of the links on the first page talked about why antibacterial soap isn't so great (this one says "residue-producing antibacterial soap may kill normal healthy bacteria on the skin as well as unhealthy bacteria, allowing resistant bacteria to take its place"), one was a great article worth reading called The Benefits of Using Real, Natural Soap, and two talked about an ingredient called Triclosan.

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Triclosan

The Benefits of Using Real, Natural Soap:

"Antibacterial and antimicrobial soaps often contain triclosan. Triclosan is a toxic chemical that is known to cause cancer. According to the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides (NCAMP), manufacturers of a number of triclosan-containing products claim that the active ingredient continues to work for as long as 12 hours after use. Consumers are, therefore, exposed to triclosan for much longer than the 20 seconds it takes to wash their hands or face."

Triclosan, A Chemical Used in Antibacterial Soaps, is Found to Impair Muscle Function:

In recent years, research has shed light on a number of problems with employing triclosan so widely. Studies have shown that the chemical can disrupt the endocrine systems of several different animals. Additionally, triclosan penetrates the skin and enters the bloodstream more easily than previously thought, and has turned up everywhere from aquatic environments to human breast milk in troubling quantities.

...Triclosan impairs muscle function in both animals and humans...The chemical hinders human muscle contractions at the cellular level...

“Triclosan is found in virtually everyone’s home and is pervasive in the environment,” said lead author Isaac Pessah. “These findings provide strong evidence that the chemical is of concern to both human and environmental health.”

According to Triclosan's Wikipedia article, "Two reports . . . suggest that triclosan can combine with chlorine in tap water to form chloroform, which the United States Environmental Protection Agency classifies as a probable human carcinogen, meaning it likely causes cancer.

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Is it actual soap?

I'm looking at my 64 fl.oz. refill bottle of Image Essentials Aquarium Liquid Hand Soap that I bought at Target awhile back. I'm wondering what these ingredients are and if this is actually real soap or just a bunch of synthetic chemicals.

(information comes from the Cosmetics Database)

Water

Sodium Laureth Sulfate (foaming agent...may be contaminated with potentially toxic manufacturing impurities such as 1,4-dioxane* and ethylene oxide**)

Cocamidopropyl Betaine (a synthetic surfactant. It was named 2004 Allergen of the Year).

Decyl Glucoside (a glucose-based surfactant)

Sodium Chloride (an inorganic salt)

Fragrance

DMDM Hydantoin (an antimicrobial formaldehyde-releaser preservative. Strong evidence of human skin toxicant or allergen. Contamination concern of formaldehyde, which is a known carcinogenic.)

PEG-120 Methyl Glucose Dioleate (a surfactant and emulsifier, used as a thickener. There are contamination concerns of 1,4-dioxane* and ethylene oxide**)

Tetrasodium EDTA (a chelating agent, used to sequester and decrease the reactivity of metal ions that may be present in a product. Classified as expected to be toxic or harmful. Enhances skin absorption.)

Sodium Sulfate (an inorganic salt)

Polyquaternium-7 (a synthetic polymer. Classified as expected to be toxic or harmful. Suspected to be an environmental toxin.)

Citric Acid (in this case, it's used as an acidity adjuster)

Poloxamer 124 (a synthetic surfactant)

PEG-7 Glyceryl Cocoate (This synthetic polymer is based on PEG (polyethylene glycol) and fatty acids derived from coconut oil. Due to the presence of PEG, this ingredient may contain potentially toxic manufacturing impurities such as 1,4-dioxane* and ethylene oxide**)

Red 33 (a synthetic dye produced from petroleum or coal tar sources. Widely used FD&C and D&C colors are coaltar (bituminous coal) derivatives that are continuously tested on animals due to their carcinogenic properties.)

Blue 1 (blue dye)

*The carcinogen 1,4-dioxane contaminates up to 46% of personal care products tested. The chemical is an unwanted byproduct of an ingredient processing method called ethoxylation used to reduce the risk of skin irritation for petroleum-based ingredients. Though 1,4-dioxane can easily be removed from products before they are sold, its widespread presence in products indicates that many manufacturers fail to take this simple step.

**Ethylene Oxide is a known human carcinogen and a known human respiratory toxicant. It's a flammable toxic gas used as an intermediate and fumigant.

Wow. I'm officially disgusted. So this hand soap that my family used directly on their skin for months, contains 2 ingredients that may be toxic or harmful, and 4 ingredients that might produce carcinogenic by-products, including formaldehyde.

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Carcinogenic By-products

Okay, so I just learned a lot by researching the ingredients on the back of my refill hand soap. I didn't have the first clue as to what these ingredients were, let alone their toxicity levels. And the most disturbing part to me are these two by-products that are known carcinogens (1,4-dioxane and ethylene oxide). So I did some more reading on them.

I found two write-ups about this on the ATTITUDE boutique website: FAQ Body Care and We think you should know (good to read for more of the whole story). Here's a good summary of what they tell us:

To save money, manufacturers use ethoxylated ingredients contaminated with 1,4-dioxane and ethylene oxide by-products, which are classified as carcinogens (groups 1 and 2), according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer. These industrial pollutants are not identified on the label, so it’s very difficult for the consumer to know whether a product contains them or not. Because these by-products appear in low concentrations, industry and the governments ignore them, hiding behind the age-old principle that it’s the amount that kills, thus tolerating these contaminants.

So the manufacturers and the government think that because these cancer-causing toxins are present in tiny amounts, that it's all okay for us? Are they serious? Oh, I guess it's just like how high fructose corn syrup is "okay in moderation"...although it's in everything. We are not a country of moderation!

On the 1,4-dioxane page of the Cosmetic Database website, you can see all "Ingredients potentially containing the impurity 1,4-dioxane." This takes you to a list of 1,813 ingredients. Of those, 649 are listed in products within their database (some of those ingredients at the bottom of the list are only in one product that is labeled as an "old product." But that doesn't mean it's not sitting on someone's shelf still being used).

And the top two ingredient winners are:

Polysorbate-20, contained in 4,750 products (within the database)
Sodium Laureth Sulfate, contained in 3,822 products

There are a lot of "polysorbates," "PEGs," and -reths" (laureth, steareth, etc.) at the top.

Okay, so what to do about it. The article Contaminants in Bath Products, which talks about 1,4-dioxane and formaldehyde, gives us a few tips:

1. Avoid using products that list ingredients that may be contaminated with 1,4-dioxane, including:

• sodium myreth sulfate
• PEG compounds
• chemicals that include the clauses "xynol," "ceteareth" and "oleth"

2. Avoid products that contain formaldehye-releasing preservatives, including:

• quaternium-15
• DMDM hydantoin
• imidazolidinyl urea
• diazolidinyl urea
• sodium hydroxymethylglycinate
• 2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3 diol (Bronopol)

That is certainly excellent advice. But when you're standing in the store, looking at the back of a label, are you going to remember which of the unpronounceable ingredients are the really bad ones? 

My advice: MAKE YOUR OWN.

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Homemade Liquid Hand Soap

I didn't intend on this post getting so long. But the more I learn about all this, the more it just infuriates me that this is going on without most of the general public knowing about it (including me for years). I want to help spread the word. This stuff will kill you.

So, as I said in one of my previous posts, castile soap is an awesome natural soap that is plant-based. It is toxic free and not at all synthetic. It's REAL soap. I'm using it in my laundry soap, my dishwasher, my dish soap, as my hand soap, and will soon be using it in my homemade shampoo.

This is the proportion of how I like to make it (you may like it thicker or waterier):

In a soap dispenser, put in one part liquid castile soap, two parts water. Shake it up.

That's it, end of story.