What is it:
Chemical derivative composed of several non-volatile alcohols.
What does it look like?
These could be in powder form or liquids.
What is it used for:
Its usd in products as thickeners or emulsifiers as well as a cleaning agent, skin-conditioning agent and a solvent.
Why we are featuring it:
Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) is a top sensitizing cleansing agent used in skincare products. Its used as a standard against which other ingredients are measured for their sensitizing effects.
This ingredient though is not known to be hazardous to health or skin. It does though affect the efficacy of other ingredients.
It is often misrepresented due to unintentional poor understanding of its toxicology by enthusiastic beauty writers. Here is an article by NCBI on clearing SLS as an unwanted irritant and how it is misrepresented: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4651417/
References:
Journal of Clinical & Experimental Dermatology Research, November 2014, ePublication
British Journal of Dermatology, July 2014
International Journal of Toxicology, July 2010
Contact Dermatitis, January 2003
Px: Image by engin akyurt from Pixabay
