Baby Soft

I have to confess: I've always assumed that baby shampoo is safer than other kinds. I mean, it doesn't sting little baby eyes and is gentle to their tenuous strands of hair. For just that reason (and because you can pick up a bottle for a dollar) we always keep some around the house. I alternate it with more expensive shampoos and even use it sometimes as a body wash, particularly if it doesn't smell too much like a baby.

But now the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics (CSC) reports that various baby shampoos they tested have cancer-causing chemicals in them, one being Formaldehyde, which is used in embalming fluid. Not that evil shampoo manufacturers are surreptitiously trying to destroy the baby population, of course. Instead these things form while the original innocuous, baby-safe ingredients incubate in their clear plastic bottles on the shelf.

The FDA and Johnson & Johnson state that these chemicals are found only in very small, safe amounts. But according to CSC researchers the FDA never studied cumulative exposure or exposure to baby skin.

Maybe we should just wash our babies and everything else with Ivory soap -- it's 99 44/100% pure, you know.

Or is it...


Photo courtesy of Arturo J. Paniagua