Saturday, February 20, 2010

The search for shampoo

Someone gave me a pack of Nivea "sensitive" products for Christmas. It's taken me a long time to report on them as it's taken me a long time to test them.

That's not quite true. There is a shaving cream, which is just fine. It's main plant ingredient is chamomile, which we know is okay, and some palm oil product.

So I have been thinking that Nivea might have solved the problem and produced a range of salicylate free bathroom goods.

This week I tried the shower gel. It seemed okay. The Splodge, which was The Ring, did not flare up. But in the light of day I have just checked the ingredients, which are written in incredibly small print. They are radically different from the shaving cream and include sodium salicylate, citric acid and I suspect quite a lot of coconut oil.

So why no reaction? If you remember the Imperial Leather test, that particular product is choc-a-bloc with salicylate, and long before I knew anything about this problem it used to leave me bright red and scorched after a shower.

As stated earlier we do have cold viruses around so my immune system may be a little low this week. And until my encounter with the Tandoori prawns I had been successfully observing a salicylate-free life. Perhaps I will try a little again sometime.

Some advice to manufacturers: you are not "sensitive" if you include salicylates; nor are you "sensitive" if you write your ingredients in tiny print.

RAS

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