All kinds of news about shampoo carcinogens exceeding the standard is common. Whether it is an international brand or a domestic brand, the threshold of excessive carcinogens in shampoo seems to have become a hurdle that cannot be bypassed.

In 2017, 消委會推介洗頭水 60 popular shampoo brands on the market and conducted chemical and microbiological tests. Thirty-eight shampoos were found to contain the carcinogen dioxane.

What is dioxane?

Here is a brief introduction to dioxane.

Dioxane is a colorless or transparent liquid with a slight odor similar to that of ether. It is a commonly used non-proton-passing solvent, and is mainly used as a solvent for different solvents, emulsifiers, and descaling agents. It is irritating to the skin, eyes and respiratory management system and may cause serious damage to the liver, kidneys and nervous network system development.

As its name suggests, dioxane is not a good thing and is classified as slightly toxic. According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classification, it is classified as a Group 2B carcinogen, which means that it is potentially carcinogenic to humans and clearly carcinogenic to animals.

Although it is a carcinogen, it is normal for shampoos to detect dioxane!

Although industry regulations do not allow the addition of dioxane to shampoos, the vast majority of regular manufacturers follow strict standards and do not add the substance.

However, most of the current shampoos, shampoos and other daily cleaning products use anionic and nonionic surfactants, dodecyl ether sulfate (AES), polyethylene glycol (PEG) and other surfactants, which inevitably produce the carcinogen dioxin during the production process, and there is no technology available to completely remove it.

There are also a number of problematic foods that contain dioxin, such as seafood, grilled chicken, meat products, tomatoes, tomato sauce, pepper, and coffee produced with dioxin concentrations of 10 to 100 ppm.

So why use this unsafe surfactant? Are there relatively safe shampoos on the market? Can we still wash our hair properly?

Things to know about surfactants

Currently, most people still have a herd mentality when it comes to shampoo products. They will buy anything that sounds good in an advertisement, and the long list of chemical terms on the ingredient list suggests that people who are not partisans cannot understand them.

The main ingredients used in shampoo formulations include:colloidal mixtures of surfactants, emulsifiers, suspending agents, thickeners and oily substances. If other ingredients such as anti-dandruff and plant extracts are added, a variety of systems with different functions can be derived.

And what is the most basic, primary mechanism of action in the shampoo market? It is, of course, a cleansing of the hair! And the determining factor of the cleansing power lies above through surfactants.

Commonly used surfactants in shampoo

1. Soap-based: soap-based shampoo is very much like soap, has a very strong cleaning power and oil, will be all the oil on the scalp to wash away. At the same time will also destroy the protective layer of the scalp, greatly reducing the antimicrobial power of the scalp, so that the scalp to form two extremes. The more you wash, the more oily or dry, leading to dandruff, itching, hair loss, scalp sensitivity. Because soap-based shampoos can leave the scalp feeling very dry and tight, silicone oils are often added to reduce the intense dryness of soap-based shampoos.

Sulfate surfactants are shampoos that contain ingredients such as sodium lauryl sulfate (K12), sodium lauryl sulfate (AES), and sodium ammonium sulfate of dodecyl dodecyl polyoxyethylene ether sulfate.

This shampoo has a lot of foam, strong cleansing power, little irritation, 平安鐘電話looks perfect, and is cheap to produce, so it can be considered a perfect surfactant. However, it "inevitably" produces the carcinogen dioxane during the manufacturing process. Because this is unavoidable, the EU (below 10ppm) and China have different limits for dioxane content. China's domestic standard is more stringent internationally, with a limit of 30 ppm, while Korea's limit is 100 ppm; therefore, the original product manufacturer added other surfactants such as K12 (SLS) to meet the standard.

3、New surfactants from other countries: such as alkyl glycoside surfactants or amino acid surfactant shampoos. The development of these new materials surfactant products are a sulfate-free or soap-based. They are less irritating, healthier, safer, non-toxic, green, ecological, and seemingly perfect, but unfortunately for us, because of China's weak production capacity for cleaning (to be added to a lot), they are expensive, often selling for more than 10 times the price of the sulfate-based shampoos that students typically use.

The industry is also researching and discovering new surfactants, which will remain a major shampoo option until completely safe, reliable and low-cost mass production watches are available鑊鏟.

Market outlook for China's wig industry

So, is it so possible to want a shampoo that doesn't have even a hint of dioxane in it?

Yes, but they either through this shampoo does not work well or this shampoo is very expensive.

But in fact, the consumer offers the fundamental problem of not having to obsess so much about "dioxane" as a substance of life. Here at the same time to mention that old saying: not talk about the dose of toxicity, are rogue!

Although animal experiments have proved that dioxane has a carcinogenic effect on animals. However, there is no evidence that dioxane is carcinogenic to humans. And it is categorized in the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as Category 2B, meaning that its potential carcinogenicity to humans is small and the degree of pathogenicity depends on its dose.

In addition, dioxane has a very low skin absorption rate, and even if shampoos contain trace amounts of dioxane, they are generally safe to use. As long as you are not washing your hair hundreds of times a day for the rest of your life, the risk to your health is very small.

Therefore, the vast majority of shampoos on the market are safe to use, but choose carefully for sensitive skin, as exposure to low concentrations of dioxane aerosols can irritate the eyes and the airways.

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