For the girls who signed up for the shampoo co-op — some sad news!
About a week ago, reader April went back on the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep site — to discover that suddenly, the ranking for EO Shampoo was no longer a “low risk” 1, but had shot up to a “moderate risk” 5!!
WTF! So I wrote Amanda at EWG, who looked into what was going on. Apparently, the original EO ranking was based on an incomplete ingredient list. “The product was updated sometime in the past couple of weeks, so it’s actually a 5, not a 1 like the page originally reported,” Amanda said.
Wow! Did I miss something that indicated the incompleteness on the Skin Deep site? Apparently not — Amanda says “From what I understand, *we* don’t even necessarily know when a report is truncated.”
Um…. Then how are we supposed to be able to trust the rankings?
Basically, Skin Deep rankings for any given product may or may not be correct. The way to make sure you’re getting the correct ranking is by comparing the ingredients list on the product to that on the Skin Deep site to make sure they match up.
Could this be any harder? When I’m feeling pessimistic, Skin Deep seems more like an exercise in illustrating how inadequate our current FDA oversight is, as opposed to a real consumer-oriented tool to help us make our own choices wisely….
Amanda for her part was super helpful and apologetic — and said that a staff member and an intern or two were now sifting through to find items that need fixing. No guarantees that all items will be fixed though — the ingredients-comparing will still be required to ensure you’re getting the proper ranking….
So now I need to look for a new shampoo — again. I’m feeling disappointed, a bit peeved — and rather tired.
That sucks – I am sorry and can empathize (i am an EO conditioner user myself — deep condition which wasn’t available in the bigger sizes so i was really jealous). Anyways, I really love EWG but agree that not only is Skin Deep unwieldy (ie you can’t use it on the fly unless you have better technology than I do) it does seem to lack comprehensive info. Bummer… When my Whole Foods stuff runs out (in 6 months as I have enormous bottles of their house brand) I am going to go with Amalah’s advice to someone with a scalp condition and try baking soda wash, vinegar rinse.
Comment by MamaBird/SurelyYouNest — April 4, 2008 @ 11:26 am
Bummer!! It makes me wonder what other forgotten ingredients sneak into my seemingly wholesome green products.
Comment by lillie — April 4, 2008 @ 12:56 pm
Switch to bar shampoo soap! I’ve heard great things about Burt’s Bees, but I use JR Liggets. No bottle, no chemicals. I still have conditioner from my pre-natural days, so I use that as well. I will have to search around for natural conditioners when I run out.
Comment by Lauren — April 4, 2008 @ 3:58 pm
Damn. I just bought some regular-sized EO. Well, it’s probably still better than what I’ve been using.
Comment by Kate — April 4, 2008 @ 5:47 pm
While I’m not happy that the EWG site didn’t work out for you, I do hope this will encourage you to look for plastic-free shampoo and conditioner. You could try J.R. Liggett, as Lauren mentioned, or the baking soda/vinegar rinse that others are touting.
I haven’t gone the baking soda route yet, but I plan to try it out when my bar shampoos run out. I do, however, HIGHLY recommend baking soda for deodorant.
Comment by Beth aka Fake Plastic Fish — April 5, 2008 @ 10:00 am