Got2B Full of Toxins

After watching the Story of Cosmetics, I began to wonder what kinds of toxins I might be putting on my body every day. So I looked into this and began looking at the ingredients used in my personal care products. I decided to take a closer look at my hair gel that I have been using for years, Got2b Glued Styling Spiking Glue.

I started reading the small print on the label, and these are the ingredients that I found that are being used to make my hair gel: Water, Sorbitol, VP/VA Copolymer, PVP, Vinyl Caprlactam/vp/dimethylaminoethyl Methacrylate Copolymer (what?), Petrolatum, Tricontanyl PVP, Propylparaben, Cetearyl alcohol, Parfum (Fragrance), Hydroxyethylcellulose, DMD Hydantoin, and Methylparaben just to name a few.

I was shocked when I could not pronounce most of the ingredients or even have any idea of what it is. But then I researched this gel a little more on Environmental Working Group's website to see what these ingredients are and what they are doing when I put them in my hair most mornings. I found that this hair gel scored a 6 on their rating system with is the highest score you can get on the Moderate level, so this product is considered "moderately hazardous." The ingredient "Fragrance" is the most hazardous but it was hard to know what it actually is, and after researching a couple other products Fragrance is in almost every personal care product, so that was a little alarming. Another ingredient is Propylparaben, which scored a 7 on EWR's website putting it in the "High Hazard" category. So I decided to research what this ingredient is.

Propylparaben can be found naturally in some plants, but is manufactured synthetically for its use as a preservative, commonly found in water based cosmetics, like hair gel and other lotions and creams. Its main use is to kill and prevent the growth of fungi. It is said that it is safe with concentrations up to 25%.

The biggest concern is Endocrine disruption as it mimics estrogen, which has been found in recent studies showing strong evidence. There is also strong evidence of Propylparaben being a human immune toxicant or allergy. These are all dangerous outcomes from one ingredient, the main way this ingredient irritates people, is by skin irritation. It is easy for the gastrointestinal tract to rid the body of this. But there have been cases where Propylparaben was found in breast tumors, but they have not linked it to causing cancer.

Overall, I will continue to use this product because the amount of Propylparaben used is between 0.01 and 0.3% concentrations. After finding this information I am now aware of all natural products that are available and have begun to look into these. It is hard to switch after using the same product for about 5 years, but it could be in my best interest to replace this product with a less harmful competitor. So with that, I am going to look into non toxic products and see if any are comparable to this product I use now.


Websites used for information:

http://www.drugs.com/inactive/propylparaben-87.html

http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-propylparaben.htm

http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/product/479610/Got2b_Glued_Styling_Spiking_Glue/