When I was 19 I developed Alopecia, which is a condition that causes hair loss. Now, I went through a lot of tests to try and understand what was causing my hair loss and the results were inconclusive, it wasn’t my Thyroid and the Doctors could only determine it might have been stress-related. At the time I didn’t feel particularly stressed, but I did after my hair started falling out.

I spoke to a nurse and she recommended that I needed to be incredibly gentle on my hair – gone were dying my hair crazy colours, the straightening iron was out too, as was brushing or combing my hair whilst wet. She always recommended that I use Simple shampoo and conditioner because they were more gentle and kept the ingredients simple.

In my 20s I discovered Lush, their skincare and their shampoos and conditioners. I was in love. I was in love with their New shampoo, particularly as it was designed to boost, shine and stimulate my hair. I also adored Veganese conditioner – it smelled divine, didn’t weight down my hair and made my hair shiny. Completely sold and in love.

Now because my hair was delicate I was told not to wash it every day, which I had been doing and stretched to every other day. I tried a few more Lush shampoos, Seanik and Squeaky Green. I had real issues with Squeaky Green, at first, it made my hair squeaky clean and I loved it, but my scalp did not love it, it became very dry, itchy and I developed flakes. Unfortunately, because I was washing my hair every other day as well, the problem just became worse and I stopped using Lush’s haircare products.

I later discovered the No ‘Poo movement and the use of a chemical called Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, which is often abbreviated to SLS. People were saying that SLS is that chemical that makes shampoo lather and produce those nice bubbles that get hair so clean…heaven…but they also strip out all your natural oil. Your hair will produce more oil to compensate for the loss and so you get into this vicious cycle of the more you wash your hair, the more you need to wash your hair because it becomes greasy at a faster rate. In fact, you only need about 5% of SLS in a product to cause irritation in a ‘normal’ scalp, those with more sensitive scalps will become even more irritated by it. I looked at the Lush ingredients and discovered that all the shampoos I had been using and the Veganese conditioner contained SLS. So I decided all commercial shampoo was ‘evil’ (I didn’t really but did think natural was best). I am a historian and have always looked at women’s hair of a bye-gone era and thought how beautiful it was (apart from the wigs, powdering of hair phase etc). I read and discovered that Victorian women washed their hair about once a month, and it was not until the 1930s that commercial shampoo came into prominence. So I decided to go no ‘poo. It wasn’t a great experience, often it is difficult to wash your hair and not miss bits because there was no foam to see where you are washing. My hair also felt incredibly dry from the Baking Soda mixture and it just didn’t look great. So I went back to using commercial shampoo but avoided SLS, thankfully I had transitioned a little so I can get away without washing my hair all the time, I generally wash once or twice a week now, I aim to leave my hair a good 4 to 7 days before washing it again.

Now some companies that make shampoo bars have been jumping on this anti-SLS bandwagon and producing shampoo bars without SLS and marketing them as SLS free. I’ve stumbled across two of them so far this month.

One is sold by a company called Soul Good Stuff and it is marketed as being a Soul Good Stuff product, one of the company representatives said it was not their brand. It claims to be:

A nourishing and easy to use SLS-free Shampoo bar which leaves hair feeling soft, shiny and clean – usually achieved without the need for apple cider vinegar rinses or a transition period due to the use of a milder coconut based detergent which helps to clean hair.

Mint Sorcery Shampoo Bar at Soul Good Stuff

Another shampoo bar that labels themselves as SLS free, is Grüum. However, the key ingredient they use in both the Soul Good Stuff and Grüum shampoo bars is. Sodium Coco Sulphate. Now I had actually come across this sulphate in late February because it is now being used in some of Lush’s newer shampoo bars and I researched it. Turns out it is actually wrong for companies using this sulphate to label their product as SLS-free because it contains SLS. Let me explain:

SLS can come from petroleum, coconut oil or palm oil and it basically is isolating the lauric acid within these products and then mixing it with sulphuric acid and then neutralising with an alkali.

Now Sodium Coco Sulphate is a little different because it takes all the fatty acids from the Coconut and then mixes them with sulphuric acid and then neutralising it was an alkali, in the same process that creates SLS. But if SLS is made by isolating one fatty acid from a coconut, and Sodium Coco Sulphate using all of the fatty acids from the coconut…I think you can see what I am getting at here…shouldn’t SLS be present in Sodium Coco Sulphate? The answer is yes. At least 50% of Sodium Coco Sulphate contains SLS.

Now, I read that Sodium Coco Sulphate is more gentle than SLS, and I went to Lush last week and looked into some of their new shampoo bars and conditioners. I was talking to one of the servers and I explained that I used Lush before, loved their products but my scalp did not love SLS and I read that some of your new shampoo bars use less SLS. She actually said it was great that I was aware that these shampoos are NOT SLS free and they cannot say they are SLS free, but they are REDUCED in SLS compared to some of their older formulas. I got two new shampoo bars and a new conditioner from Lush to try.

What annoys me is the other companies that market themselves as SLS free, Lush do not and they state that Sodium Coco Sulphate contains SLS. So why if Lush is not doing it, why are the other companies. It goes back to my Devacurl: What Should We Be Learning? post in February. We should be looking at what is in our products.

I did speak to Soul Good Stuff on Facebook when another individual asked if their products were SLS-free. I took a screenshot from my phone and I went back today to get a clearer picture but I could not find the post, please excuse the fact I misspell Lauryl:

What really gets to me, is that people selling these products market it as SLS-free, when it is not, and then they don’t even know what is contained within some of their own ingredients. It makes me more concerned than ever about reading the labels and understanding what is in them because it seems that companies are happy to market a falsehood and do not always understand their products. I have to say though, I was really impressed with Lush, the person I spoke with’s knowledge and then ethics of the company, that even if it contains a tiny amount of SLS, and by requirements they do not have to advertise that it contains SLS because of the trace amounts, Lush will list it and acknowledge what is in their products.