Modern families have become reliant on liquid shower gels and plastic-pump dispense liquid hand soaps. But really, is all that plastic packaging necessary? And think of how often the average family goes through these products, only to have to buy yet another container. Much of that plastic gets thrown out and ends up in a landfill, depending on your municipality’s recycling program.

A better option for the environment, and cheaper for your wallet, is a return to good old-fashioned bar soap. It is usually wrapped in paper or recycled paper, or you can cut the packaging altogether by  buying it  loose in natural food stores.

It’s a little messier, and can be slippery for little fingers, but it’s much better for the planet. And bodywash and liquid handsoaps usually cost about four times as much as bar soap!

I don’t have the stats for Canada, but if every household in the U.S. replaced just one bottle of shower gel with a bar of soap, roughly 2.5  million pounds of plastic bottles would be diverted from the waste stream! That is staggering.

In our household, we went back to the bar a few years ago with no regrets. We still use liquid handsoap at our bathroom sink for quick cleanups, but we refill our plastic container with a natural handsoap we purchase in bulk from our neighbourhood natural food store.  We just take our container in, have it weighed, and refill when necessary.

Our online eco store, Kai Kids, also carries some excellent bar soaps:

• Organic Baby Soap, by Bare Organics, which we use for the whole family
• Avocado Cleansing Bar, by Dimpleskins (very gentle and great for babies)
• French-Milled Vegetable Soap, by South of France (lasts for months, and comes in two lovely scents: Honey and Lemon Verbena)

Happy washing!

If any of you parents out there still haven’t made the switch to natural, chemical-free shampoo, soaps, bodywashes and lotions for your families, a new study should help convince you.

A report by the  Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, released yesterday, found major brands such as Johnson & Johnson, Baby Magic, Huggies and Mustela to be contaminated with cancer-causing carcinogens formaldehyge and 1.4 dioxin. Formaldehyde can also trigger skin rashes in some children.

Babies and children are far more vulnerable to the harmful effects of toxins and carcinogens ingested and absorbed through the skin due to their small size.  Their organs are still developing, and their bodies are less able to detoxify and excrete chemicals.

These substances are contaminents that get into the products during the manufacturing process and as such, are not listed on ingredient labels. 1.4 dioxin is a byproduct of a chemical processing technique that makes products bubbly and formaldehyde is released in the bottles and containers over time from preservatives used to prolong shelf-life.

In Canada, both formaldehyde and 1.4 dioxin are on Health Canada’s cosmetics hotlist, which means they cannot be used as ingredients in personal-care products, but are allowed in trace amounts in levels higher than those detected in yesterday’s study. There are a few exceptions for formaldehyde, which is permitted as in ingredient at low concentrations to provide antimicrobial preservation.

For the study, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics commissioned an independent laboratory to test 48 common children’s products for 1,4-dioxane; 28 of those products were also tested for formaldehyde. The lab found that:

• 17 out of 28 products tested – 61 percent – contained both formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane
• 23 out of 28 products – 82 percent – contained formaldehyde at levels ranging from 54 to 610 parts per million (ppm).
• 32 out of 48 products – 67 percent – contained 1,4-dioxane at levels ranging from 0.27 to 35 ppm.

More than 60 percent of products tested contained both toxins, including Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, L’Oreal Kids Extra Gentle 2-in-1 Fast Dry Shampoo, Huggies Naturally Refreshing Cucumber & Green Tea Baby Wash, Gerber’s Grins & Giggles Milk & Honey Baby Wash. Bubble bath products branded with popular children’s characters also tested positive for both chemicals, including Barbie, Dora the Explorer, Sesame Street, Hot Wheels and Tinker Bell.

Here are some tips to ensure what you buy for your family is non-toxic and safe:

• Use natural and organic products. (Kai Kids carries some excellent chemical-free lines: Dimpleskins, TruKid, Bare Organics, Little Twig,  and Earth-Friendly Baby)
• Look for ingredients you recognize: jojoba oil, coconut oil, olive oil, beeswax,  glycerin, rosemary extract (a natural preservative), grapefruit oil, calendula, cocoa butter, Vitamin E oil, etc.
• Read labels carefully and avoid products you can’t pronounce and those containing: parabens, sodium laureth sulfates,  polyethylene glycol, phthalates, petrolatum/mineral oil/paraffin, glycols, MEA/DEA/TEA, PVP/ acrylates, DMDM hydantoin/ diazolidinyl urea/ methylisothiazolinone

Obviously, the price for all-natural, chemical-free and organic shampoos and lotions is higher, as the ingredients and manufacturing processes are more costly. But what I’ve found as a parent who switched to natural skincare products back when I was pregnant with our oldest son, now 4, is that natural skincare products seem to be more concentrated and last a lot longer. That means you definitely get your money’s worth. One small tin of Bum Bum Balm lasted me almost nine months of mulitple diaper changes a day, and one bottle of Organic Chamomile Shampoo & Body Wash got me through six months of bathtime for my two children!

I think it’s because the ingredients are quality and pure and there are no fillers, but I’m starting to suspect that aside from being full of toxic chemicals, conventional drugstore products are made so that you go through them quickly and will buy more!

As if parents don’t have enough to worry about already what with toxic baby bottles and lead in toys, this week it was reported that many common brands of baby shampoo, powder, creams and lotions contain high levels of dangerous pthalates, a chemical used to stabilize fragrance and soften plastic.It’s the same chemical found in many plastic and vinyl baby teethers and bibs, which is why at Kai Kids we only sell organic cotton teething toys and bibs.A study in the February issue of the journal Pediatrics revealed high concentrations of these hormone-disrupting chemicals in the urine of the babies studied between 2000 and 2005. All had detectable amounts of at least one type of phthalate, and more than 80% had seven or more types. The babies in the study had more than four times the amount in their urine than babies whose parents did not use the products.More than half the mothers in the study reported using baby shampoos on their infants within 24 hours of the urine tests, and about one-third had used lotion, and 14% used baby powder.The more the mothers used the various products, the higher the levels found in their babies’ urine, leading researchers to suspect that the skin absorbs and transfers the chemicals into babies’ bodies. The highest levels were found in babies under eight months old.Exposure to pthalates could reduce testosterone and alter reproductive organs. Very scary. And Canadian and U.S. manufacturers aren’t currently required to list pthalate contents on their packaging!When you are shopping, look for products labeled “phthalate-free,” or check labels for common phthalates, including DEP and DEHP. I recommend Earth-Friendly Baby, a natural, organic, chemical-free baby skincare line from Australia that we recently started to carry at Kai Kids. No pthalates and a label that lists all of the ingredients!When we had Kai three years ago, I had read about pthalates and tried to find natural babycareproducts that didn’t contain them. But it was only recently that I weaned myself off of lotions and my favourite perfume, which are both full of the toxic chemical. But happily, it’s now easy to find safe, nice-smelling alternatives for the whole family.-N