Natural Beauty Products - SLS and Paraben Free

Laura and Margaret Sorrell – Sorrells Naturally, a family company

We think it’s important to outline to our customers ways in which we have focussed on what has become important to us – that is to say Laura and Margaret Sorrell – sisters-in-law and members of a family for which we care deeply.

We wanted to work together and thought that starting a company that emphasised our own aims, values and ambitions was the only way we could go about this.  Honestly to start a company for which we would be proud to put our name and to work for.

I have thought long and hard as to why we chose this particular line of work, that is to say why we took such pains to stay on this critical path of a minimum of chemical usage and in this sense make it all so much harder to achieve.

I believe at least part of the answer to this is ‘control’. I mean this in the sense that we are all sick and tired of huge corporations and companies dictating to us what we should and should not use in and on our bodies.

For the first time we have choices as to what we can eat.  There are many many farmers battling against huge odds to provide natural and organic food, in a sense a return of good food.  The recent report from Food Standards Agency (29 July’09) must have felt like a huge blow to the industry.  My view is that nutritional value ie calories taken in from the food we eat is in fact only one part of the story; what about the pesticides in non-organic foods? What about the condition the animals live? The hormone boosting injections and antibiotics?

No the control element lies firmly with our growing refusal at being marketed at by the big companies.  I can no longer stand the truths that I personally have discovered along the way.  The fact that in order for a shampoo to be considered ‘Baby’ shampoo it is required to contain another cocktail of chemicals that do not sting the eyes.  So our assumption that there should be less chemicals to make a shampoo suitable for babies is founded on the belief that no-one would willingly distort the truth enough to toy with our family morals to the extent of deliberately harming our children.  How wrong we turned out to be.

I come now to Parabens and Sodium Laurel Sulfate which are two of the most widely known chemicals that people today are attempting to avoid, due to recent discoveries of their harmfulness to our bodies and our current desire to regain control over what we put on or bodies as well as what we put in our bodies.

Parabens: the only other ingredient found more widely in cosmetics is water. Although there are a wide range of Parabens which are put there to act as a preservative against mould growth, they are thought to mimic female hormones and have recently been discovered in breast tumours by a British scientific study.  A further study found that most breast tumours are discovered in the left breast and this was thought to relate to the fact that the majority of people are right-handed and that therefore deodorants, which contain Parabens, are applied more vigorously to the left arm pit.  We all await further studies. Because of these reasons we support paraben free beauty products.

SLS/Sodium Laurel Sulfate – is a detergent and foaming agent used widely in all types of soaps, shampoos, face washes, bath and shower gels and toothpastes.  Recently found to be more harmful to the skin than had previously been believed and that SLS can in fact stay in the body for 5 days or more.  It has a drying and thickening effect on skin and can damage the delicate mucous membrane of the mouth and even be the cause of mouth ulcers and cause irritation to the eyes.

It would be nice to be able to list a wonderful list of alternatives to these chemicals and I believe that inroads are being made into this study and we will make it our future study to further protect the family that we have.

We may all need to change the way we think about and treat the products we use in our bathrooms. Because of these reasons we support SLS free beauty products.

Shelf-Life – as Sorrells Naturally products do not contain harsh chemical preservatives, the shelf-life is shorter than many other bath and beauty products.  Mostly this is 6 months but check each label.

It’s important to note that most large manufacturers make and order huge quantities so therefore need to keep preservatives for storage and shipping.

Looking after products – it’s not necessary to keep Sorrells Naturally products in the fridge, however, to keep the products at their best and to retain the maximum shelf-life it’s recommended that you always close the lids or caps after using to avoid contamination. Always use with clean hands and fingers to prevent cross-contamination.