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A soapy smelling soap with perfect ingredients?

Honestly: if all the soap makers except Palmolive would stop working tomorrow and that fantastic little shave stick would be the only soap left - I wouldn't mind. The Palmolive with its green, clean smelling goodness is the one product I keep going back to, and I enjoy every single shave.

But.

CI 74260 and Ci 11680, Tetrasodium Edta, Bht, Coumarin - the ingredients are less than stellar. And call me an idiot, but since cancer is a significant part of my family history I'm trying to avoid stuff like that as good as possible.

So. Is there any soap with a similar soapy freshness that doesn't feature all this crap? I don't know about most "small" soapmakers products because they're hard to purchase in my country without paying a fortune in shipping costs - recommend me some anyway if they match the profile.

What do you guys say?

Thanks!
 
I don't know which ingredients cause cancer. All of the soaps I own from "small" soapmakers don't come with ingredients. That said, I'll recommend Williams Mug soap because it smells like soap and here are the ingredients. Feel free to let me know which ones cause cancer:

Potassium Stearate, Sodium tallowate, Sodium cocoate, Water, Glycerin, Fragrance, Sodium chloride, Titanium dioxide, Stearic acid, Pentasodium pentetate, Tetrasodium Etidronate.

I would recommend Conk's Amber... but it doesn't come with an ingredients list.
 
I would second the vote for Williams and add maybe some VDH Select. The VDH Deluxe is good too but has a little more added fragrance and thus doesn't smell as "soapy" as the select or the williams. Also both the Williams and the VDH's are cheap and locally available in most places.

I can't find the palmolive around here lately and I miss it though I preferr the mug soaps to the creme.
 
Tetrasodium EDTA? It's a metal chelating agent. It won't kill you, give you cancer or anything else you can think of. Heck, they use the stuff extensively in treating heavy metal poisoning.

And BHT? That's short for butylated hydroxytoluene. It's a widely used antioxidant. So, if anything it will cellular damage to your tissues.

CI 74260 and Ci 11680? Off the top of my head I'm not exactly sure what they are, but I'm at least fairly certain they're both dyes, possibly even plant-based ones. Again really nothing I would worry about.

And as for coumarin? Yes it is toxic, but its only moderately dangerous to humans. However, I'm willing to bet there is less of it in that shave stick of yours than a bunch of cinnamon of equivalent weight. In short, it's pretty nothing to worry about unless you're planning on ingesting several shave sticks within a short period of time.

So are you an idiot? No, not at all. I just thing you need to quit reading too much into ingredients with exotic sounding names. Just because it sound like a big, scary chemical doesn't make it so. It just makes it a chemical, and well everything around you from the water you drink to the air you breath is made out of chemicals. :001_smile
 
CI 74260 and Ci 11680, Tetrasodium Edta, Bht, Coumarin - the ingredients are less than stellar. And call me an idiot, but since cancer is a significant part of my family history I'm trying to avoid stuff like that as good as possible.

I don't know where you are from, but here in the US everything causes Cancer according to someone. We have cancer labels everywhere. Honestly I don't worry about it.
 
What I say? You're overreacting. Of the compounds you mention, the colour is the truly superfluous one. But EDTA (so that people with hard water can use it too), BHT (so your stick doesn't turn into a mass of happy bacteria, or go rancid), and coumarin (so your soap smells fresh---it's the same fragrance as that of freshly cut grass) have a legitimate reason to be there. They are so widely used that if there were serious problems associated with their long-term use under normal conditions (i.e., short application time and low concentrations), we'd have known it long since. You see, since we are talking long time frames here (since short time frames are ruled out by experimental evidence), easily spanning a third or half a human lifetime, it is impossible to point at, say, EDTA and blame it for some disease or illness. Think about the multitude of things you've touched, inhaled and ingested during that time. They swamp any signature of EDTA.

But, if you want to avoid 'crap', then I'm happy to say there is a simple solution. Don't shave at all, and use scissors. Or, if you think that's not sufficiently presentable in your line of work, shave with water and a little oil. I'd advise against scenting that oil, because according to some databases, even a product like limonene---the fragrance of limes---is to be considered a 'high hazard' product. If you consider 'soap' to be safe, and have no objection against (bitter) almond oil and/or the sweet fragrance of almonds and/or sodium carbonate, you might want to check out the soft Italian soaps Cella, P.160 and Valobra. These come with very minimalistic ingredient lists, and shave very well just the same.
 
I don't know where you are from, but here in the US everything causes Cancer according to someone. We have cancer labels everywhere. Honestly I don't worry about it.

I'm from Michigan. And no not everything causes cancer here in the US, its just like that over in California. If you don't believe me check out your laws, even water will cause cancer over in in the state of California. :wink:
 
I'm from Michigan. And no not everything causes cancer here in the US, its just like that over in California. If you don't believe me check out your laws, even water will cause cancer over in in the state of California. :wink:

I thought you were from an undisclosed location.:lol:
California just has stupid laws requiring you to post it. I read a report that stated breathing L.A. air is equivalent to a pack a day habit. Look at reports that come out of various US studies and virtually everything causes cancer.
 
I don't know which ingredients cause cancer. All of the soaps I own from "small" soapmakers don't come with ingredients. That said, I'll recommend Williams Mug soap because it smells like soap and here are the ingredients. Feel free to let me know which ones cause cancer:

None. Nor do any of the ingredients listed by the OP.

I'm sure that I can make a study that shows a link between cancer and every substance, chemical, ingredient, food etc known to man. There's nothing in any cosmetic product out today that I'm aware of that poses a significant risk to anyone that uses it (barring natural allergies to certain ingredients). Technically, water is one of the most dangerous substances known to man, yet if we don't drink plenty of it every day, we will die. We will also die if we drink too much of it.

I love freaking out people who come to my house and pour themselves a glass of water out of jug. After they drink about half a glass, I get wide eyed and put my hands up to my face. They start going "what? WHAT?" And I tell them that they just swallowed arsenic. Panic and hilarity ensue, and then I explain that water contains trace amounts of arsenic, bottled or tap. These are usually the same people that insist that parabens and alcohol are dangerous without realizing *** they're talking about.
 
I thought you were from an undisclosed location.:lol:
California just has stupid laws requiring you to post it. I read a report that stated breathing L.A. air is equivalent to a pack a day habit. Look at reports that come out of various US studies and virtually everything causes cancer.

You're reading too much into those reports, not that the people writing the darn things help. Almost anything can be potentially toxic in some way, but what matters is the lethal dosage needed, what organs are targeted, how it enters the body, how it leaves the body, how fast it leaves the body, and how likely you acquire the necessary lethal dosage before the substance leaves or is metabolized. In short the odds are in your favor for most of the stuff they report on. You're probably much more likely to win the lottery or get stuck by lightening then die from the stuff. :biggrin:
 
You're reading too much into those reports, not that the people writing the darn things help. Almost anything can be potentially toxic in some way, but what matters is the lethal dosage needed, what organs are targeted, how it enters the body, how it leaves the body, how fast it leaves the body, and how likely you acquire the necessary lethal dosage before the substance leaves or is metabolized. In short the odds are in your favor for most of the stuff they report on. You're probably much more likely to win the lottery or get stuck by lightening then die from the stuff. :biggrin:

Matt, we agree. I guess I just didn't represent well enough. I was trying to poke fun at the fear/panic about these types of things.
 
Matt, we agree. I guess I just didn't represent well enough. I was trying to poke fun at the fear/panic about these types of things.

So you're saying we should panic then? :wink:

It could only shorten your bank account!:lol:

Well that could in theory shorten your life if SWMBO really finds out how much you're spending on shaving soaps and such. :lol:

Agreed. I think my addiction to fine soaps has contributed to the Countrys national debt.:frown:

Well, at least you're well-shaven. :biggrin:
 
Matt, we agree. I guess I just didn't represent well enough. I was trying to poke fun at the fear/panic about these types of things.
To be fair to the OP, he did mention he comes from a family where the risk of developing cancer is higher than normal, so it's not too difficult to see where he's coming from... But even then the extra risk induced by these compounds---if they have a noticable elevated risk at all---is not measurable in the time frames we're talking about here.
 
To be fair to the OP, he did mention he comes from a family where the risk of developing cancer is higher than normal, so it's not too difficult to see where he's coming from... But even then the extra risk induced by these compounds---if they have a noticable elevated risk at all---is not measurable in the time frames we're talking about here.

But that's precisely the problem here. None of those except the coumarin have ever been linked to cancer as far as I know, but even that has to be in such low amounts the risk is most likely nil. I mean if Whitmore here is going to avoid Palmolive solely on that, then he might as well avoid eating anything containing cinnamon, which also contains extremely low levels of coumarin and related compounds as well. While I can certainly understand his concerns, I think he has other things to worry about than a Palmolive shave stick giving him cancer. :001_smile
 
But that's precisely the problem here. None of those except the coumarin have ever been linked to cancer as far as I know, but even that has to be in such low amounts the risk is most likely nil. I mean if Whitmore here is going to avoid Palmolive solely on that, then he might as well avoid eating anything containing cinnamon, which also contains extremely low levels of coumarin and related compounds as well. While I can certainly understand his concerns, I think he has other things to worry about than a Palmolive shave stick giving him cancer. :001_smile
If you reread my answers, you will see that we are in perfect agreement. However, it is up to the OP to determine what he finds an acceptable risk based on what we've written so far.

But even then, as you probably know, human beings are funny creatures when it comes to risk. They happily accept the huge risk of participating in normal city traffic, but shirk away from, for example, using a shaving soap. The difference is that the first is out of their hands, while the second is not, even though a few simple calculations show that the risks involved differ by many orders of magnitude.
 
Quite an uproar I caused - thanks for the replies though.

First things first: relax. So far I've never dismissed a shaving product based on the ingredients (well, cocoa butter gives me zits so I stay away from the cream from our local market, but apart from that I use everything from Valobra to C&E feat. magnesium nitrate). So I wouldn't dramatise my search for 'cleaner' products, it's just a part of a rather freewheeling "How to consume some better stuff without sacrificing quality of life" campaign.

I'm well aware that living in a town with 45,000 cars and four factories is a much higher risk than three minutes of Palmolive lather soaking my beard every morning. Still - if there's a pretty natural soap like the Valobra on the one side and [random chemical bomb] on the other - I'd rather chose the natural one if it gives me an enjoyable shave. Not a big deal.

Again: l know that even mentioning ingredients often triggers some pretty Pavlovian responses, so fire away if you'd like to. Still the original question was not so much about the sense and senselessness of ingredient checkups, but about soapy smelling soaps with preferably "good" or "natural" condiments.
 
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