You may not pay a great deal of attention to the ingredients of your personal care products - you’re more likely to be concerned with their effectiveness, their price and even their packaging than what they contain.
Sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS) and the similar sodium laureth sulphate (SLES) are detergents that act as cleansers, emulsifiers and foamers and are present in thousands of household and industrial items. They are present in the vast majority of personal care products including moisturisers, body lotions and shampoo. There are several variations of these ‘sulphate’ (or sulfate) chemicals and they differ slightly in composition, but fundamentally they are the same. They frequently appear in personal care products mainly because they’re cheap and highly effective cleansers and foaming agents.
This is despite the fact that they are known to be skin irritants. They are detergents and so their properties are very similar to soap – stripping the skin of moisture and protective oils. SLS is the most common of these detergent chemicals and it is the one that causes most skin irritation - it prevents the skin from being able to efficiently defend itself from the environment - and studies have shown that almost half of people are sensitive to it. It has been proven that SLS is a very corrosive irritant that was still detectable in research subjects for three weeks post use. SLES causes less irritation than SLS but is more expensive and thus SLS is frequently favoured.
Both SLS and SLES have been proven to exacerbate skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis and so sufferers of these conditions are advised to eliminate sulphates entirely. Signs of sensitivity to sulphates include redness, scaling and itching of the skin, and an itchy scalp and hair loss when it is used in shampoos. Anyone who experiences these symptoms should switch to sulphate free products to see if their symptoms improve.
As public awareness of the effects of sulphates has grown, so has the market for sulphate free products, with ranges such as Liz Earle and Aveeno boasting SLS and paraben free products.
Research has shown that people who use cosmetics on a daily basis can absorb up to five pounds of chemicals and toxins into their bodies every year, and so it’s worth remembering to check labels to see what the ingredients are and whether they can be harmful. Eliminating sulphates could be all you need to do to put an end to red, itchy, and dry skin.
By guest journalist: @racheljanenash
