Chemical Free

My coworker told me that sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) and parabens are found in almost all personal cleaning products, like body wash, soap, and shampoos. But they are really bad for you. Anything that you apply to your skin will get absorbed into your bloodstream. SLS is the same thing as sodium dodecyl sulfate, a reagent we use in bio research. The function of SDS is to denature proteins so that you can run them on a gel and see if your protein of interest is there. So proteins are usually folded up in a certain configuration, and SDS is negatively charged, so it interacts with all positively charged amino acids and binds, unfolding the protein. And protein structure = function. I'm not sure of the clinical implications of SLS, but companies use it because it is very foamy and sudsy and we all love suds so we pay for it.

I was reading that all of the chemicals in most commercial shampoos are really bad for your hair, and can create chemical buildup and you can start losing your hair. And I think this might be happening to me... I was using Dove for the longest time b/c it kept my hair shiny and smooth and smelling fresh. But lately my hair has been brittle and thin and easily sheds and Dove isn't really working anymore. I'm not sure if it's the oxidative Los Angeles sun and air, or if it's the Dove. But I'm definitely switching to chemical-free.

Parabens are some type of cancer-causing chemical, I'm not really sure what they do. But anyway, the less industrial chemicals... the better for me. I tried this all-natural, organic soap:



And it is really awesome! It leaves my skin feeling super smooth. So I'm looking into replacing my shampoos and conditioners too. I found this site that has a pretty good collection of chemical-free stuff.

Oh yeah, I think I am going to get the shampoo on that link, since it's the cheapest and seems promising.