Choosing The Best Hand Wash For You: 3 Ingredients Explained

Is your hand wash eco-friendly? Should you really be going sulfate-free and paraben-free?

All that scientific jargon on the ingredients list might look intimidating, and there are so many greenwashing buzzwords surrounding our personal care products. But don’t worry – we’ll give you the inside scoop on how to decipher it all.

See past the marketing and choose the perfect hand wash to keep your hands clean and green.

1. Sulfates
Some examples include: sodium laureth sulfate, sodium lauryl sulfate, ammonium laureth sulfate

Sulfates are a surfactant and emulsifier, responsible for making your soap and shampoo sudsy and foamy. They’re commonly used, and for good reason: they’re highly effective at removing oil, dirt, sebum and dead skin cells from your body and hair.

So why the controversy? They’re so effective that they can irritate and dry out your skin, causing redness, itchiness and more.

With everyone washing their hands more often these days, we kept our hand wash sulfate-free to ensure a gentler (yet still effective!) wash. Our cleansing agents of choice are Sodium Lauroyl Methyl Isethionate and Capryl Glucoside, which are plant-derived and biodegradable alternatives to sulfates that are just as good at cleansing, but less harsh on your skin.

2. Synthetic Polymers
Some examples include: polyethylene glycols (PEG), polypropylene glycols (PPG), carbomers, acrylates copolymer

Polymers refer to large molecules that are made up of smaller repeating chains. It can mean a variety of things, but it’s most often used to describe plastics.

Your hand wash, shower gels and shampoos usually include synthetic polymers. You’ll commonly see them listed as PEG or carbomer with a number following it (such as PEG-120 or carbomer 934), or as acrylates copolymer. They’re helpful for thickening and improving viscosity, giving products that smooth gel texture we’re all used to.

However, most (if not all) of these synthetic polymers are not biodegradable, which means you’re washing pollutants down the drain every time you wash your hands.

We avoided synthetic polymers completely when formulating our products, so you can keep your hands clean in all the ways that matter.

3. Parabens
Some examples include: methylparaben, propylparaben, butylparaben, ethylparaben

Parabens are artificial preservatives widely used to prevent the growth of bacteria, fungi and mould in your personal care products, thereby prolonging their shelf life.

They can be absorbed through the skin, which means daily use of multiple products that contain parabens will result in excess exposure, even if each individual product contains what is considered a “safe” amount of parabens.

Parabens have been discovered in breast tumours, and are associated with breast cancer development and other reproductive issues. Though the impact is not yet fully known, parabens are believed to disrupt hormone functions by mimicking estrogen, and heightened levels of estrogen promote the growth of breast tumours.

They’re also an ecological concern, as they can kill coral and have recently been detected in marine wildlife, likely due to the personal care products we use leaking into the environment.

Many parabens are banned in the EU and in ASEAN countries, and we follow their lead in ensuring our products are paraben-free.

Want to see more? Check out our range of hand wash, hand sanitizers and body wash here