Tough Love met with HIGH Dislike

I am five pages into Chapter Two, which is about beauty, and I'm having a crisis.  All but one of my: shampoos, conditioners, lotions, toothpaste, scar treatment, mouthwash, body washes, have at least one item that Sophie classifies as The Red list items in them.  (I’ve given the link to the full list of chemicals to avoid in beauty products on the right.)  The Red list items are supposed to be thrown away immediately.  I’m copping out and at least finish the products with the excuse of “I’m a poor college student.”

My organic shampoo and conditioner, which I’m already dissatisfied with, has the umbrella term fragrance.  Fragrance is a ubiquitous term that masks hundreds of ingredients, including phthalates, which disrupt the endocrine system and could cause reproductive and developmental harm. (Uliano, 2008)  My organic lotion really only claims, in fine print, to contain organic vanilla extract.  My contact solution has two types of PEG and methylparaben.  What am I suppose to clean my contact lenses with now? 

The countless Burt’s Bees products that I own also have fragrance written within the ingredient list. Burt’s Bees, whose website home page claims, “Earth Friendly Natural Personal Care for The Greater Good.” is failing me.  I went to email them to ask what they meant by fragrance on their ingredient lists, but apparently it’s a common question.  Their reply was:

“The term "fragrance" on our labels may indicate the use of natural fragrance (essential oils), synthetic fragrance or a combination of both. Burt's Bees makes every attempt to exclusively use blends of natural oils in formulating our fragrances, which sometimes results in us using over fifteen different essential oils. However, on certain occasions, it may be necessary to use synthetic ingredients in our fragrances in order to sufficiently mix the fragrance with the product formula base and to keep the product stable.”

I was curious to why they would add synthetic ingredients and it also was answered.

“At Burt's Bees, we believe that synthetic ingredients should not be used in natural personal care products. The only instance when a synthetic material is acceptable is when there is no viable natural alternative.  We also list a percentage natural for every product we make. We stand behind our ingredients and our products.”

My roommate suggested that they may also add the synthetic ingredients to keep the product from decomposing.  I’m hoping on this to be the case and as soon as I can compose a polite inquisitive email, it will be off to the company, hopefully.

The only product that passed the chemical inspection was the Burt’s Bees Almond Milk Beeswax Hand Crème.  It’s 100% natural.  At least my hands won’t be cracked and bleeding due to dryness this winter.