one more question about the cosmetic database...what ingredients to definitely avoid?

[rach03]

Sorry, I had another question about the Skin Deep cosmetic database

I asked the other day what the highest number people felt safe was, and it was posted that even though the number may be 3 or 4, it might have one big no-no ingredient as opposed to another safer 3 or 4 product.

So could you guys tell me what the ingredients are in body products that you should absolutely avoid? The worst ones?

Thanks

[mamathellama]

I don't have any ingredients I specifically look for, but overall I am trying to switch to things that are 0-2. There are several areas where this is hard, like DH likes to use a shave gel for shaving and he's particular about it. So the product he uses currently is a 5. There are only a couple shaving products that rate lower much lower that are actually gels and I haven't been able to actually find them anywhere. So we may just have to stick with that for now. However, he was willing to switch to Dr Bronner's liquid soap (variously rated 0 or 1) for hand soap, bath soap and shampoo, so that eliminated a lot of exposure.
A lot of products have unspecified "Fragrance" and that scores an 8. It really depends what the fragrance it and how much is in it, but of course it probably just is best to avoid products with added fragrance anyway. If they are using something really safe for fragrance they would put the actual ingredient in the list rather than the generic "fragrance", I would think anyway.
That didn't really answer your question I know, but overall what I've been trying to do is just reduce exposure where ever we can and then not worry about the few things we haven't changed.