This is a public service announcement that may surprise some of you. Are you ready?!
There are no truly natural surfactants that will produce a thick lather.
“Non-sulfate shampoos” have become a buzzword in the hair industry, now that people have begun to realize just how harmful chemicals such as sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) and sodium laureth sulfate (SLES) can be. The problem is that these chemicals are not actually removed from the shampoos. They’ve just been renamed; SLS alone has 38 different names. or they have been replaced with different chemicals.
What if the label says the ingredient comes from coconut?
Let us consider the raw material—lauryl alcohol. SLS is synthesized in the lab by treating lauryl alcohol with sulfur trioxide gas or chlorosulfuric acid. Lauryl alcohol can come from petroleum, but it can also come from coconut oil. The oil is put through an complex process, however, that releases the fatty acids, then hydrogenizes the oil, and finally pulls out the lauryl alcohol.
Regardless of where the alcohol comes from, it’s still mixed with the other chemicals to produce SLS or SLES or other forms of the ingredient. The result is still a chemical that is a long way from the original coconut oil. We may feel more comfortable having something that originated from coconut oil, which we recommend, rather than from petroleum, which we don’t but that doesn’t mean the chemical is any safer. The chemical may not only be irritating to scalp and hair, or that it will not be contaminated from manufacturing processes.
We have no way of knowing the extent of the contamination. Companies can “vacuum-strip” ingredients to take the 1,4-dioxane out, but you won’t find anything on the label telling you whether or not they did that.
The whole “coconut-derived” or “from coconut oil” or whatever description you may see on the label has been described as a marketing ploy to make you believe that somehow the ingredient is more natural. When the “all natural” product says its made with coconut oil and it foams, check the back. Does it say cocamide diethanolamine (DEA)? This is a foaming chemical derived from coconut oil in a laboratory. In 2012, California added cocamide DEA to the Prop 65 list of harmful chemicals. Check out this list of products with cocamide DEA on EWG’s Skin Deep Database. Some of them are marketed as natural, organic products!
The Cycle of SLS and Other Foaming Chemicals
As described by Anthony Morrocco of Morroco Method:
- Have greasy, dirty hair.
- Shampoo with chemical foaming agents.
- Chemicals strip hair of natural oils, making it look clean for a little while.
- Scalp panics and overproduces oil to compensate.
- Repeat 1-4 until hair is unhealthy, falling out, or worse!
- It’s never ending! And your poor hair just has its damage covered up with chemicals over and over, so you might not be aware of the problems.
His recommendation? If it foams, don’t take it home!
Again, there are no truly natural surfactants that will produce a thick lather. Natural products, like Morrocco Method shampoos, will foam very, very little, not even noticeably most of the time. Only chemicals can produce that beehive of foam.
Morrocco Method is one of our incredibly supportive sponsors and the only haircare products I use. They celebrated 50 years as a company in 2015. They exhibited at the last Weston A. Price Foundation’s Wise Traditions conference in November. See my webinar interview with Anthony Morrocco. I am delighted to announce that they have offered our community a coupon code!
Coupon Code
Your 15% off coupon code Nourishing15 will expire in one week from today!
Cost
I would like to dispel the myth that these products are more expensive than others. The set of 5 shampoo bottles we rotate lasts me at least one year – 15 months this last round, now that my hair is shorter. If you do the math, I think you’ll find that it is very competitive in terms of costs. We dilute the shampoo with water, as it is very concentrated.
I encourage you to explore Morrocco Method. Nothing but pure, all natural ingredients you can find from Mother Earth! And the only things you can’t pronounce are the scientific
botanical names of the plants they use. But at least you know what they are!
Your 15% off coupon code: Nourishing15 will expire in one week from today!
Nourishing Our Children 
8 Responses to Step away from the suds.
I use JR Liggett’s hair shampoo bar in the tea tree oil version that has these ingredients: Saponified Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Castor Oil, Sunflower Oil, & Org Palm Kernel Oil; Tea Tree Oil, Hemp Oil, Almond Oil. I would say it “lathers” but perhaps not in the same way that you mean?
Does it lather like the lather you see in the picture at the top of the post? There are no truly natural surfactants that will produce a thick lather. Natural products, like Morrocco Method shampoos, will foam very, very little. Only chemicals can produce that beehive of foam.
Sandrine, JR Liggets is a soap, not a detergent. Yet, it foams. It says on the website it’s 100% Detergent Free and will not strip hair of it’s natural protective oils. There’s no Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, DEA or any other Petroleum based Detergents. When I use it, it doesn’t dry out my scalp like shampoo.
I am not familiar with that product however, I want to reiterate what I’ve written in the article. I am not referring to a few suds or a small amounts of foam like we see in Dr. Bronner’s glycerin soap. I am referring to a thick lather such as that which is displayed in the photo. Is that what your product produces?
Ralph Martin of Morrocco Method explains:
“The main difference between MMI’s processes are that they are “blends” of natural ingredients. This is what sets them apart from most everyone else.
Reactions between ingredients that create a thick later, by definition are not natural because they occur in a laboratory or industrial environment.
Reactions are totally different than “blending” of natural ingredients. When you “react” natural ingredients you are turning it into an un-natural product.”
If you have any further questions, please contact Morrocco Method. Ralph is a scientist on staff who is quite capable of responding to any concerns about the statements made in this article, which I have taken directly from them. http://shop.morroccomethod.com/Contact-Us
The soap we mentioned is a typical saponified coconut oil soap. Soap has been used for thousands of years, and it is helpful in removing oily residue on skin, clothing and hair. It is a beneficial chemical reaction, just like cooking foods creates a beneficial reaction in making food more digestible, or for example the Malliard reaction in cooking creates the wonderful flavor in roasted meats or veggies or how wood burning creates warmth through a chemical reaction. Also the biological processes of digestion and breathing are necessary chemical reactions, and exposing your body to the sun allows it to make the necessary Vitamin D for our bodies, and the controlled chemical reactions baking with baking soda or of fermenting food and drink are beneficial as well. My point is that just as we can harness chemical reactions in cooking for our benefit, we can use soap to our benefit as well. :)
Oh also by the way, the characteristics of the lathers produced by saponified fats (which is a chemical reaction between a fat and lye) change depending on their fatty acid profile. For example, saponified coconut oil produces a rich lather which is not stable, but is a great cleanser and is somewhat drying. Saponified castor oil produces a rich and stable lather, and tallow and lard do not produce rich lather but the lather is stable. Check out http://www.soap-making-resource.com/saponification-table.html for the descriptions of different types of fats and the the different characteristics they produce when making soaps.
Allison, the point made by Morrocco Method is that natural products do not create a thick lather and that it is not beneficial to strip natural oils from the hair and scalp in this manner. If you’d like to argue that point, please contact Morrocco Method directly.
Ralph Martins responded to your comment as follows:
My comments would be that she is correct in that the saponification reaction is one of the oldest “man made” reactions.
I do not believe that the point is whether chemical reactions are beneficial or not, because many of them are and many are not, Plus “beneficial” is up to interpretation. The point is whether the reactions occur in nature or are they created in a laboratory or industrial environment.
The biological reactions she is referring to occur in nature and have a purpose. Even some of the biological reactions have their downsides.
For example, the over production of histamine that gives us the symptoms of a stuffed up, or runny nose and other symptoms of a cold are natural biological reactions.
I don’t think that is the point.
The point is that the MMI product line consist of natural ingredients formulated into a “blend” without the occurrence of any “man made” chemical reactions, and that these types of blends do not produce an abundance of lather and that the production of lather is a result of some type of “man made” chemical reaction and should not be classified as all natural. Keep in mind also that the “old” saponification reaction she is referring to is done today by producing ethylene oxide and propylene oxide industrial reactions and are NOT done the same way they were done thousands of years ago. As I mentioned in my last comment regarding this issue, the production of ethylene oxide and propylene oxide reactions are very dangerous reactions, plus they are very damaging to the hair.
Thanks,
Ralph”