Paraben free
The entire range of Honey Body Care soaps are SLS and paraben free, so no matter what you’re looking for, you can be confident that you are using the best that nature provides.
Both our hand soap and hand wash products are naturally powerful detergents and are as effective at removing dirt and bacteria as any other products on offer.
Which are the most delicate surfactants, and which are the most aggressive?
The list of surfactants that may be present in detergent products is very long and continuously increasing thanks to cosmetological research, so it is very difficult to provide a complete list of these substances; but we can indicate a partial list of surfactants, chosen from among those most commonly present in commercial detergents, both in “supermarket” products and in “herbalist” or “perfumery” products.
Aggressive or moderately aggressive surfactants: alkyl sulfates (e.g. Sodium alkylsulfate), sodium lauryl sulfate (Sodium laurilsulfate), sodium lauryl sulfate (Sodium laureth sulfate)
Mild or mildly delicate surfactants: betaines (e.g. Cocoamidopropyl betaine), soy coccopolipeptides, sarcosinates (e.g. Sodium lauryl sarcosinate), coccoanfoacetates (e.g. Sodium cocoamphoacetate), coccotartrinate (e.g. Cocopoly laurethglucose tartrate), sulfosuccinate sulfosuccinate), compounds of hydrolyzed proteins (e.g. Sodium cocoyl hydrolized wheat protein).
Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) and sodium lauryl ether sulfate (SLES) are two surfactants widely used in the vast majority of conventional detergents such as shampoos, shower gels, toothpastes and liquid soaps, in varying proportions.
However, there is extensive literature on the undesirable effects of these substances. SLS is very degreasing and is also used to clean engines and mechanical workshops, and as a paint stripper.
It can be irritating to the skin and eyes and increases skin permeability, which is obviously dangerous when other potentially harmful substances are present in the same product. It can delay the healing of corneal lesions, and can damage it (depending on concentration and contact time) especially in children.
SLES is much less aggressive than SLS, but during its production dioxane is formed, a carcinogen that is difficult to eliminate from the final product, and which can contaminate it in trace amounts.
Some research suggests that SLES can react with other substances commonly found in cosmetics, leading to the formation of nitrosamines, other carcinogens that can penetrate through the skin. All this does not authorize to consider necessarily dangerous products that contain SLS and SLES, since a lot also depends on the concentration, the other substances contained and the time of contact with the skin; however, it is important to underline that these are two surfactants with a strong environmental impact and whose degreasing action, if not balanced by the presence of other more delicate surfactants, can be too strong.
How to read a label
The composition of the cosmetics must be reported on the label according to the INCI (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients) rules established by the European Community.
The substances contained are listed under the heading Ingredients; if present in quantities greater than 1%, they are shown at the top of the list, in descending order of concentration (from the most abundant to the least abundant); then followed in random order by the substances contained in an amount of less than 1%. There is no distinction between the two groups of substances, that is, you cannot know where the list of “ordered” substances ends and where that of “scattered” substances begins.
Most of the ingredients are listed in English; some ingredients instead appear in Latin, for example water (Aqua) or honey (Mel). The substances obtained from plants appear only with the scientific name of the plant: for example, if we find the European Olea, which is the scientific name of the olive tree, it could be olive oil, an olive bud extract, a tincture mother and so on. The dyes are indicated with the initials C.I. (stands for Color Index) followed by a number: for example CI 47.005.