What is SLES？Is SLES harmful?

What is SLES？

Sodium LaurylEther Sulphate is a kind of degreasing, inexpensive, superior performance of surfactants, cheap, is widely used in a variety of detergents, such as toothpaste, shampoo, shower gel, soap, dish soap, laundry detergent, as well as all kinds of kitchen and bathroom detergents, and even car wash detergents, it is also an important ingredient.

Is SLES harmful?

Recently, people are often popularized by the popular SLES that this ingredient is harmful to the human body if you put aside the dose to talk about harm, then this problem is meaningless. When the concentration of the chemical is less than 0.5%, the harm is not obvious, but after more than 0.5%, it will make your skin dry. Many detergents with good foaming effect have far exceeded the 0.5% standard, so they will be harmful to the human body

Then there will certainly be people who will ask if SLES is harmful to health, why do mainstream brands insist on using it? Because there are experiments that show that SLES is formulated in low concentrations, the possible skin irritation is very low. In fact, in various washing products, no matter what kind of surfactant, the cost is not high. In addition to low-cost products, surfactants are usually only a small part of the cost of raw materials, and the bulk of the cost is more of a conditioner and functional ingredients. Specifically in the formulation, the choice of surfactant as a whole is more from the product target efficacy rather than cost. The first is a core indicator of surfactant ingredients, HLB value, which can be simply understood as the strength of the ability to remove oil when washing. The mainstream cleaning emulsifier/surfactant on the market, HLB is generally a dozen to a dozen, a very small number of extremely hydrophilic strong degreasing types, the highest can be about 20, so we see the HLB classification table every day, there is no more than 20 parts, and SLES such surfactants can indeed reach about 40, in addition, SLES antibacterial ability is also very strong, it is 20-80 times stronger than some professional antibacterial ingredients such as sorbic acid. Not only is the cleaning power invincible, antibacterial, and anti-virus powerful, SLES its foaming performance is extremely excellent, foam and strong, and it is easy to match the cotton soft and fine foam experience, which fully meets the needs of the vast majority of users who pursue a rich foam experience. The ultra-cleansing ingredient of SLES can reduce its irritation by formulating compound ingredients, thereby ensuring relative mildness, of course, the characteristics of the ingredients themselves cannot be changed. There are good and bad features of SLES, and the key is how to use it.