Is your shampoo making your hair fall out?
Photo @kevinbae
If you’re anything like me, you were raised to believe that good personal hygiene demands a daily shower.
Whether or not that’s true is a matter of debate, but what’s arguably much more important than your showering frequency is the bevy of potions you use each day to get yourself clean in the process.
Depending on your skin care needs, your morning hygiene ritual could involve a whole pharmacy shelf’s worth of products, from exfoliating facial scrubbers to gentle oil-based cleansers, micro-plastic shedding polyurethane poufs for dispersing liquid body soaps, body scrubs, foot scrubs, bar soap, hair masks and conditioners, and of course, shampoo.
We’ve been told over and over again that we need all this stuff to look our best and take it for granted that all of these products are delivering on their promises. But what if our most beloved personal hygiene heroes are doing more harm than good?
Case in point, I recently discovered that many volumizing shampoos contain ingredients that exacerbate hair loss. As someone who has experienced hair thinning first-hand, I was horrified to learn this. I had chalked up my personal experience of having kids, a natural sign of aging, or even poor genetics. It didn’t occur to me to point the dirty end of the stick at the products I was applying on the daily.
So, as an avid user of Johnson & Johnson’s OGX line (those fragrances!), I was less than thrilled to learn that a class-action lawsuit has been filed against them because the shampoo line contains a formaldehyde-releasing ingredient that can contribute to hair fall, among other things. (And that's in addition to the other major lawsuits against them for including cancer-causing ingredients in baby powder). The ingredient DMDM hydantoin is just one in a long list of suspicious additives that can negatively impact your health. And while the companies that use these ingredients argue that there isn’t enough scientific research to support the claims about hair loss, there’s plenty of scientific research proving that formaldehyde is a known irritant, allergen, and carcinogen. So why add a formaldehyde-releasing ingredient to your product in the first place?
Money. Obviously.
DMDM hydantoin slowly releases formaldehyde, which acts as a preservative, to increase the shelf life of their products. Longer shelf life means less waste and more money in the bank for them. Every product that contains even a smidge of water has to contain a preservative, or it would mould. Every product. Even the so-called “natural” beauty products you buy have to contain preservatives. So DMDM hydantoin isn’t the only bad guy you have to avoid.
Common categories of ingredients to watch out for include:
Alcohols
Formaldehyde and formaldehyde releasers like DMDM hydantoin
Parabens
Phthalates
Sulphates
While these general categories have been receiving more and more attention in the past few years, and more and more consumers are looking for alternatives, you still have to be careful. If one ingredient is flagged as toxic, some manufacturers will simply choose another, equally profitable and equally toxic ingredient that hasn’t been flagged and use that for a while until they get called out for it. They also use these toxic ingredients that are no longer in favour as a marketing tool and advertise their products as “paraben-free!” or “sulphate free,” so consumers like you and I will be lulled into a false sense of security and therefore less likely to read the ingredient list and conduct research that would lead us to discover all the other toxic ingredients in there.
Sneaky bastards.
Of course, it goes without saying that if you’re experiencing hair loss or any type of health condition, you should always consult with your doctor first. You need to rule out medical conditions that could point to a deeper, underlying condition. But while you’re doing that, over-hauling your personal hygiene collection couldn’t hurt either.
Who can you trust when you can’t trust anyone?
The more you start to pay attention to the ingredients in the products you consume, the more ubiquitous these types of questionable practices become. It's a rabbit hole that, once you fall down, you can't get out of. You can't un-see what you've seen, and you can't go back to lathering up with a brand you know includes ingredients that are actively poisoning you.
So, where does that leave you?
Some alternatives to washing your hair include…not washing your hair. Like ever. Or at least never wash it with commercial shampoos and opt for a simple water rinse or natural ingredients like baking soda and/or vinegar. But if the no-poo movement doesn’t sound appealing, you can simply seek out healthier alternatives to mainstream products.
Searching the EWG Skin Deep database or using apps like ThinkDirty or Yuka can help you find ethical brands that create clean products with minimal impact on your health or the health of our environment.
Alternatively, you can make your own personal hygiene products at home. It's not as hard as it sounds, and there are tons of great books out there with easy-to-follow recipes that use ingredients you probably already have in the kitchen.
Whichever option you choose, it will get easier with time, and IMHO, sacrificing convenience in favour of peace of mind and the long-term benefits of reducing your toxic exposure is well worth it.
Good luck, brave friend, good luck.