Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Hypo-allergenic shampoo

A few weeks ago I stayed with somebody who had a bottle of "hypo-allergenic" shampoo. The bottle was plain, suggesting it was sold by a pharmacist. I tried it and it seemed to work. That would be great as I've been doing without shampoo for some time. I've continued to use the Tesco wheatgerm and corn conditioner, so it's not been obvious.

So I popped into Boots the Chemist to see if they sold this product. The trainee pharmacist behind the counter seemed pretty clueless about hypo-allergenic shampoo. I'm not sure if she even understood the word. What do they teach pharmacists?

Eventually she showed me a branded product called Simple. It's marketed as for sensitive skin but not labelled as specifically hypo-allergenic. The label says it's free of perfumes and colourings - so that was pretty helpful. I checked the ingredients and there were no obvious salicylates. There was citric acid however - which I'm never sure about.

So I thought I would give it a try. They had a three for two offer so I bought one shampoo and two conditioners. I've been using it for about a week now.

And, so far as I can tell, it's been okay, pretty good in fact. The conditioner seems to need to be used in large quantities so I think I'll be going back to Tesco's for my next stock-up.

RAS

1 comment:

aurorean_dawn said...

The Aussie haircare range is good quality, smells great and doesn't seem to give me any problems (although *some* of their shampoos and conditioners have allergens in, so make sure you read the label so you get the right one) - I used to use Dove haircare, but about 3 months ago I couldn't work out why I was breaking out in a rash. I didn't think to check the Dove products because I've used them for ages - but it turns out now they've started putting benzyl salicylate in it >:( grrrr. At least beauty products *tell* you what's inside them - nobody mentions the allergens in fruits and vegetables and whatnot.