I have found some that claim to have ingredients like fresh bananas and fresh avocado and without any preservatives being listed. How is that possible? To the best of my knowledge all kinds of little microbes just love vegetable matter. If you have the answer please feel free to post it in a comment. I would love to know more about that subject.
You might also see ingredients like limonene (a substance commonly found in the rinds of lemons) and linalool (a naturally occurring substance found in many flower and spice plants) Just Google them, as they may not be as scary as you think. It may not be clear whether the ingredient is the synthetic or an extraction, but it is more likely to be the synthetic as synthetics are more widely and cheaply available. Some of the companies I researched don't sell whipped butters.
Sometimes you will find the first listed ingredient (meaning the predominant ingredient or the ingredient their is the most of) to be water. The ingredients listed toward the end are usually the preservatives and if the product contains water it is an absolute must that a preservative be added. This also applies to any product that is to be used in the shower or has the potential for water to end up in the product (such as scrubs).
Some of these big name and very popular and expensive beauty companies sell their products at a cost of $20 per ounce and upwards. Because some of their products work so well for so many of their customers they happily pay those kind of prices. I found one product, that was a pure oil selling for $27.00 an ounce. Plus yes some of them use paraben preservatives which is controversial according to some people, but then others say that the percentage by weight is only 1% (too low to be of any harm).
I didn't find a whipped shea or body butter on either one of the two most popular beauty web sites I know of. So next I Googled whipped shea. The prices ranges I found were rather wide but then of course the jar sizes were not all the same and neither were the ingredients listed (2 of them didn't have an ingredients list at all). All of the information I was able to glean in my 1.5 hour research time is below.
whipped shea/vanilla mandarin 8 oz - 39.15 ($4.89/oz)
believe it or not couldn't find an ingredients list
Whipped shea/rainforest spice 2 oz. $6.49 ($3.24/oz)
unrefined shea was the first on the list but they also added rice bran, cocoa butter, sunflower seed oil, fractionated coconut oil, sweet almond oil, vegetable glycerin, ceteraryl alcohol and a vegetable based emulsifier, wheat germ oil, corn starch, vitamin E and lastly essential oils.
Lavender Essential oil whipped shea 3.2 oz. $12.99 now $9.99 (regular $4.06/oz) sale $3.12/oz
no ingredients list, claim is that it is 100% lavender essential oil whipped shea butter but from the research I have done 20% oil really needs to be added in order to be able to really whip the butter.
also available as pomegranate, sweet vanilla and lavender. 1st ingred. unrefined shea, rice bran oil, fractionated coconut oil, vegetable glycerin, ceteraryl alcohol, a sugar based emulsifier, cocoa seed butter, sweet almond oil, corn starch, Vitamin E panthenol (a form of vitamin B5 used as a moisturizer which can be of plant or animal origin).
Whipped shea/lemongrass 1.2 oz. $8.00 (6.67/oz)
organic raw and unrefined shea, organic coconut oil, cornstarch, lemongrass essential oil
Botanicalsforbeauty's current price is $5.25 for 1.5 oz. (will be going up to $6.75 this summer)
My ingredients: Fair trade (Burkina Faso) shea butter, apricot kernel oil, Vitamin E
That's a current price of $3.50/oz that will be going up to $4.50/oz this summer
PLEASE REMEMBER my shea has no fillers, no thickners, no water, no emulsifiers and I will soon be listing a few choices of fragrance oils and a few essential oils as well.
Great information Laura and I personally love the products I got from you. They have already made a noticeable difference in only 2 or 3 days!
ReplyDeleteVery informative. Lots to think about.
ReplyDeleteGreat info. Thanks bunches.
ReplyDeleteThank you for doing the research for us and sharing the information. I believe that, in order to protect ourselves and the planet, we must be informed shoppers. Are you familiar with this site: http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ ? It's a great resource for investigating body care products and ingredients. Not all companies are listed but one can simply type in an ingredient and bring up some great, impartial information (which we're not going to find on the "big guys" website). Thanks, again!
ReplyDeleteYes I am familiar with ewg.org However, I must admit that I am not sure that I see them at completely unbiased. I am not completely convinced that every synthetic chemical is dangerous any more than I believe that every all natural chemical is "safe". Some plants are poisonous and not intended for human consumption or even human use.
ReplyDeleteWe must be careful when making broad statements and generalizations. But I do object to the arrogance of some scientists that assume when they make a discovery and test any "data" that their conclusions are absolutely 100% correct. We often find out later that some data was misinterpreted/misunderstood, or that there was more to the situation than we knew at the time. Just look at how much time there was in between the things we learned about the structure of atoms. All of that space that we for a long time believed was empty. It wasn't empty, but we believed it was simply because we could not see what was there. Just because we can not perceive does not mean it does not exist.
Therefore, my mind remains open but I do favor mother nature and her bounty which has been used for centuries.