Monday, March 13, 2017

Is there a Method to this madness?

Just attended the Natural Products Expo West. Which, by the way, I LOOVE. I love seeing what's coming out, what products are trending and what seems to be trending more and more is organic, natural, minimally processed and sustainably sourced. That is all good news.


But what has been and continues to be so perplexing is navigating the clean, non-toxic waters of clean beauty and safe ingredients. For years now, ever since I discovered clean beauty via Beautycounter, I've understood SLS (Sodium Laurel Sulfate) to be toxic.

But when I stopped into the Method booth and saw that they had SLS in their ingredients, I had to ask, "What gives?" And the product guy basically debunked the myth. First of all, Method is a B corporation which shows that they really care about their customers, their partners, their employees and the environment. The process to get B-corp certified is really rigorous but clearly attainable. We saw a lot of B corporations throughout the Natural Products Expo. So, the product guy at Method is telling me that SLS got a bad rap based on one internet post that was misconstrued. However, my go to source often will be Dr. Mercola. Here he says that SLS or SLES may not be proven to be toxic, but some ingredients that SLS may be contaminated with - 1,4 dioxane and ethelyne oxide are carcinogenic and there has not been enough studies to prove that accumulated SLS may NOT be harmful. Basically, that's the lens that we have to remember to filter through. Accumulated substances in the body that don't break down can eventually become harmful because now your body has too much of that toxic substance.
I kind of like how he says, "if you can find products that don't contain these ingredients, then why not?"

Currently, we use ECOS for our dish washing liquid. I'm happy with it and it does not contain Sodium Lauryl Sulfate.

But going back to Method. Not only are they a B corporation but also certified Cradle to Cradle which means that they ingredients are proven not to be harmful to human health or to the environment. Now, Method did not have to do that. But I like that they take the necessary steps to get these certifications because they are basically bringing in a third party objective agency to police their work. That's going over and above. I'm impressed!

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