#13. About lather

Did you know that 99.5% of liquid soaps are not real soaps?

99.5% are cocktails of synthetic detergents that have many undesirable long-term effects on the body. This is denied worldwide due to the billion-dollar revenues of large multinational corporations. Sodium Lauryl (Laureth) Sulphate (SLS) is currently Western Civilization’s leading foaming agent. SLS is found in shampoos, bath gels, car washes, dishwashing detergents, soap bars, laundry detergents, etc. It is a wetting and dispersing agent, emulsifier, degreaser and foam booster. It also increases the permeability of the skin by about 100 times and is used in lotions to increase the absorption of micronutrients into the skin. And there is a big danger there!!

10 reasons to use products without SLS or SLES:

  1. It is used in toothpaste to make it foam, and also to hold the paste together when it comes out of the machine. Unfortunately, it also worsens gum irritation. A report from the University of Oslo (Norway) shows that in people with gum disease, symptoms disappeared 40 times faster when toothpaste without SLS was used.
  2. It can worsen hair loss and stimulate skin and scalp irritation in people with sensitive skin. It can also cause damage to the skin and hair, including cracking or inflammation. SLS is known to irritate the skin and is used in lotion tests. First, the skin is irritated with SLS – then the soothing effect of the lotion is tested.
  3. Due to its low molecular weight of 40 (anything under 75 passes through the skin and into the blood), this substance enters the body very easily and is stored in the eyes, heart, brain and liver. This substance is usually listed on the label as the second ingredient after water, indicating that it is present in large quantities.
  4. Both SLS and SLES can potentially form carcinogenic (cancer-causing) nitrates and dioxins by reacting with the other ingredients. Large amounts of harmful nitrates can enter the body through a single shower.
  5. SLS can damage the immune system, cause skin peeling, and irritate the skin. – Journal of the American College of Toxicology; Vol. 2, No. 7, 1983
  6. SLS penetrates deeply into the skin and eyes and is also retained in the brain, heart, and liver. A single drop remains in the brain and body for days. – The Doctor’s Concern: Is Your Baby Safe? Almost All Baby Products Contain SLS!!! – David L. Kern, New Health and Longevity.
  7. SLS Changes the Proteins in Eye Tissue – Permanently Affecting Eye Development. -Dr. Keith Green, PhD, D. Sc., Medical College of Georgia
  8. SLS is a mutagen. It is capable of changing the genetic information in cells. SLS is used in research to cause mutations in bacteria. – Higuchi, Araya and Higuchi, School of Medicine, Tohoku University: Sendai 1980, Japan.
  9. SLS is carcinogenic when it comes into contact with nitrosamines. Research has shown that a large number (85%) of 209 nitrosamines tested toxicologically were found to be carcinogenic. For cosmetics, N-nitrosodiethanolamine (NDELA) and 2-ethylhexyl 4-(N-nitroso-N-methylamino)benzoate (NMPABAO) are mainly important. The presence of nitrosamines in cosmetics is undesirable given their potential health risks. -FDA report 1978
  10. Sodium Laureth Sulphate (SLES) is the alcohol form of Sodium Lauryl Sulphate. Concerns regarding SLES are much the same as for SLS. SLES is slightly less irritating to the skin, but causes more dehydration and therefore faster ageing of the skin.

In conclusion: Soap has been used for thousands of years. Chemical surfactants (foaming agents) have only been used for less than 100 years. You can infer from this what is best described as “natural”. The possibility of a potential loss of 16 trillion dollars per year in the soap industry will ensure that multinational corporations continue to deny the dangers of SLS and SLES.

From: “De Online Zeepwinkel” – https://www.online-zeepwinkel.nl/c-1259894/over-sls-en-sles/


Important to know: Cretan-Garden soaps and Cretan-Garden liquid soap concentrate do not contain SLS or SLES. Cretan-Garden liquid soap concentrate will be available in the online shop during 2025, maybe 2026: lavender, oregano, rosemary and sage.

#8. Shampoo

Shampoos are, they say, liquid soap. Did you know that 99.5% of liquid soaps are not real soaps?

“99,5% are cocktails of synthetic detergents that have many undesirable long-term effects on the body. This is denied worldwide due to the billion-dollar revenues of large multinational corporations. Sodium Lauryl (Laureth) Sulfate (SLS) is currently Western Civilization’s leading foaming agent. SLS is found in shampoos, bath gels, car washes, dishwashing detergents, soap bars, laundry detergents, etc. It is a wetting and dispersing agent, emulsifier, degreaser and foam booster. It also increases the permeability of the skin by about 100 times and is used in lotions to increase the absorption of micronutrients into the skin. And there is a big danger there!!” Source

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

Shampoos, all sorts of shampoos and all sorts of brands are claiming to be the best for your hair, offering for every hair type another shampoo, another conditioner, another hair mask. I have used pH-neutral shampoos, hair conditioners, and hair masks, for as long as they became available, but my hair was, despite the neutral pH of the shampoos, and the beautiful natural conditioners and masks, never really okay. My hair is thick, curly, dry, fluffy, and my hair is becoming dryer because of becoming grey as well. I have tried everything. Because of the mentioned characteristics of my hair, it is impossible to have it long. Not even half long.

Herbal olive oil soap as a shampoo bar

I have started lately to use my own herbal olive soap for hair washing, to see what happens. It looks better and better. . The most significant difference is that I do not need to wash my hair more than once per week. My hair looks and feels normal, it is so much easier to be dressed. I was wondering why. 

Though pH-neutral shampoos can be used every day, the question is if washing your hair every day is really okay for hair and scalp. My thoughts go far back in time when hair was washed just once per week. That had a reason: the skin on the scalp is not the same skin as on the rest of your body. Every single piece of hair grows out of the scalp-skin, and it is the skin that keeps the hair in good condition. We indeed need hair conditioners and hair masks when we wash our hair daily. But if we offer the skin of the scalp the time to do their work in their own natural way, and if we do not immediately destroy their work, by daily taking away what the skin itself produces, namely sebum, we do not need hair conditioners as we do now. Daily washing the hair is maybe okay according to shampoo manufacturers, but it is a matter of logic that the natural resistance of the skin and the hair will decrease because of exhaustion, or will become overactive at the very beginning, when the daily shampoo attacks start, even when the shampoo is pH neutral. Using a neutral shampoo once per week was for me not the solution. Reason to use it more. And that did not work either.

A natural conditioner: olive oil or cocos oil

My own experiences with my oily cold process herbal olive soaps are that washing my hair with it once per week is really enough. After making my hair well dry, I use some drops of pure olive oil or cocos oil, or a mix of both, and spread it over and through the towel-dry hair and massage it into the scalp and hair. I let my hair dry naturally. My fluffy, dry hair is gone, but I expect that the condition of my hair will improve more. [Update July 20, 2025: my hair is curling again, shining, and looking healthy.] 

To make it more personal, I added about 20 drops of essential oil to a small re-used 50 ml bottle with pump, filled with olive oil, and stirred it very well.

Additional information

  1. What ages hair? – PubMed
  2. Hairloss due to electromagnetic radiation from overuse of cellphone – ResearchGate

My personal experiences with EMF and hair loss: during the time that I was not aware of the impact of EMF on my health, not informed about symptoms of overradiation, I was indeed losing so much hair that I was wondering what was going on. I have written about this on my blog Multerland, in several posts[Archives 2017-2018]. It was the start of a private study on EMF. The consultation of an osteopath was helpful in stopping my bad physical condition: she worked on my scalp and neck, and it felt as if a layer of glass had broken and my scalp was back to normal again. After several treatments, my hair was growing again. The new hair looked like baby hair, but after some months it was back to normal. The only way to get rid of the effects if wireless radiation is to live in an EMF-free environment. I bought the Acousticom2. This calibrated device is able to measure EMF. In this way, I could find the rooms where the radiation is almost zero, or at least the less, where to put the bed, where the desk with computer. Of course, all the wireless is turned off, the smart meter is turned off, the Wi-Fi is turned off, also in the computer and printer. All is Ethernet cabled. I do not have the internet on my cellphone and mostly the cellphone is on Flymodus.

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