Preservatives

Vitamin E as a Preservative:

There are a lot of sites out there advocating the use of Vitamin E as preservative for creams and lotions. Vitamin E is an antioxidant and not a preservative. Adding it to oils will help to extend the shelf life of that oil and slow the onset of it becoming rancid but it will not prevent bacterial growth. Water makes all the difference. Water is the giver of life, unfortunately water also gives live to little nasties that can make us sick. Bath and body products made with water need to have an actual preservative to prevent bacteria over time. This means lotions and creams. Vitamin E simply isn't enough.

Another Natural Myth Debunked - Grapefruit Seed Extract

As a maker of lotions and creams I have done a great deal of research on and experimenting with preservatives. These days, everyone wants to use a natural preservative. Natural is all the rage because we keep hearing that chemical preservatives such as parabens are bad. But, do natural preservatives really exist? I recently came across a website the debunked a lot of the natural preservative myths, including one in particular, grapefruit seed extract.


News Flash - This is not really natural!


"Grapefruit seed extract is not grapefruit juice. It is not simply ground up grapefruit seeds. It is not grapefruit essential oil. Chemical manufacturers take the leftover grapefruit pulp, a waste by-product from grapefruit juice production, and in an intensive, multi-step industrial chemical process, change the natural phenolic compounds into synthetic quaternary ammonium compounds... Grapefruit Seed Extract is not “natural”. It’s a chemically altered form of grapefruit seed. If you’re going to call it “Grapefruit Seed Extract”, you could by the same reasoning call Sodium Laurel Sulfate “Coconut Oil Extract”."
-Treasured Locks


Yikes. Okay so what is the conclusion? Extract is one of those funky words that can be thrown around to make people think something is really something it isn't. If we all knew Sodium Laurel Sulfate (SLES) as "Coconut Oil Extract" then people would probably think it was good for your skin. Instead we know SLES as a chemical detergent and surfactant that might be a possible carcinogen. Names are important, choosing preservatives or any other cosmetic ingredients be sure you know the meaning of the name that you are looking at. It may not really be what you think it is.