Personal Care Products

After looking up the lotion I use on a fairly regular basis, I was shocked to find out the ingredients in it and how they are affecting me. I use Queen Helene's Cocoa Butter Hand and Body Lotion; it scored 7 out of 10 on the hazard list. While reading the label, some of the ingredients i did not know and I also thought it was interesting to see how many colored dyes were added to the product. To me this all sounded crazy because it is just a lotion. The scores of its ingredients are as follows:

• 0: water, theobroma cocoa seed butter


• 1: mineral oil, stearyl alcohol, FD&C Red 40


• 2: Sodium lauryl sulfate, stearic acid


• 3: Glyceryl stearate, disodium EDTA


• 4: Propylene glycol, D&C Red 33, FD&C Yellow 6, Lanolin


• 6: Diazolidinyl Urea


• 8: Fragrance, Methylparaben

The one I found most astonishing was the fragrance. Most people buy lotion not only for what it does, but for the way it smells. The smell of a lotion is truly a big deal for a lot of people and it is one of the most hazardous ingredients. I honestly don't need this particular lotion so I don't think I will continue using it. With my job however, we are constantly using sanitizer for cleaning so it dries out your hands really quickly and because of it, we all use lotion for moisturizing purposes. After seeing the hazardous effects the fragrance alone has on this product, I am going to find a fragrance free lotion instead. I looked up another lotion I have used in the past and it scored a 3 overall. This lotion was the Aveeno Daily Moisturizing lotion and it happened to be fragrance free. I think I will definately go back to using this old lotion because it worked perfectly fine for what I was looking for. I am going to continue lookin up other lotions and personal care products in general to find ones that have the least impact on me and the environment.