trulyresponsible.org

I’ve had a response from the Body Shop concerning the product I am thinking about buying.

This can be found under the cosmetics section as before.

Recently I noticed in the press that the Body Shop was taken over by L’Oreal.

I used to believe that when I bought products from the Body Shop that I was buying a product with confidence. I feel that belief may be a little wobbly now due to the association of the Body Shop with another giant cosmetics company…

If I buy cosmetics, which I don’t very often, I usually buy from the Body Shop, and I’ve just realised I do this in an unquestioning manner. So, when considering some products for Mothering Sunday next weekend I thought I’d ask for a bit more detail about one of the products I am considering.

Follow the trail here:

http://www.trulyresponsible.org/cosmetics-etc/body-shop-brazil-nut-bath-and-shower-cream/

A week or so ago, I realised that the same ingredients that have recently been shown to give rise to Benzene in soft drinks, are also present in the shampoo my kids use. I decided to write to the makers. That in itself was hard, as there was no email address or website listed on the product, and search as much as I could for a site in the UK I was stumped. I eventually wrote a message via the US website and the experience I had as a customer was appalling.

To send a message via the US site, you must provide details of your state, and age (why on earth do they need that?) and the initial response I had was so impersonal it must have surely been generated by a machine. Anyway - you can follow the saga here:

http://www.trulyresponsible.org/cosmetics-etc/shampoo/johnsons-junior-easy-combing-shampoo/

Last week Benzene popped up again in Soft Drinks.

It seems this time it’s not a contamination issue, but a reaction between two ingredients (Ascorbic or Citric Acid and Sodium Benzoate).

In the bath a couple of days ago I was washing my 4 year old daughter’s hair with Johnson’s Junior Easy Combing Shampoo. Looking at the ingredients list (something I’m a bit of an anorak over) I noticed it contains Citric Acid and Sodium Benzoate. I wonder if the same reaction occurs in shampoo as fizzy soft drinks…? What is the safe level of benzene in shampoo..? All these things popped to mind.

I tried to track down an email address for Johnson & Johnson in the UK - but could only find a completely mesmerising corporate website in the US, with no UK contact information. The bottle itself has contact details by email in Greek, and a UK phone number. If anyone has any details please let me know.

I did however send a message via the corporate website - which oddly asked me for my birthdate before I could submit the query and which US state I was in…. Not very friendly. Details of the message can be found here:

http://www.trulyresponsible.org/cosmetics-etc/shampoo/johnsons-junior-easy-combing-shampoo/