SLS - a nasty chemical to know more about since you encounter it every day!

'SLS for short' - or SodiumLauryl Sulfate for long. If you have the suspicion washing your face is making your skin dry, or that shampooing is giving you an itchy scalp or making your eyes sting, or that cleaning your teeth is giving you mouth ulcers, SLS is the likely cause. Read this article on the ten top reasons to avoid using it and you will find it a bit scary. The most scary reason is that, whatever it's in, it helps other chemicals to penetrate your tissue; SLS is a penetration enhancer, meaning that its molecules are so small they’re able to cross the membranes of your body’s cells. Once cells are compromised, they become more vulnerable to other toxic chemicals that may be with the SLS.
Are you using it? Well not unless you use soaps, shampoos, toothpaste, detergents, mascara, mouthwash... the lists goes on.
Why am I bothering to write up on it? Because this knowledge might help YOU as it did ME! For many decades I have frequently had bad ulcers on the sides of my tongue. Even when they were not making it painful to eat they were sitting there dormant, waitint to pounce. Then I read an article, did some reasearch, read the article I linked above, and then went down to Tesco to look at all their toothpaste and shampoos for the dreaded ingredient. I had come to the conclusion I wanted to try a toothpaste without SLS in case that was the cause of my tongue (and mouth) ulcers. The results of that were amazing. The only toothpaste I found without SLS was a range from Sensodyne; I now use their ProNamel. And guess what! Within a week my dormant tongue ulcers had gone! After decades of haunting me! Gone! Point proven?
And if you would like to use a shampoo without it in (given it can permeate eyes, brain, heart and liver), then you might want to change from the usual ranges. Go for a kid's shampoo? Good try, but after checking every shampoo in the store I found it was in them all but one: yes products for adults AND children AND babies. The ONLY one I found without SLS was in a brown, pear-shaped bottle, callled Macadamia Oil by OGX Beauty Ltd (UK). (And it's nice  to use!)
So that's why I am going off-piste to tell you about SLS. Maybe, just maybe, this knowledge will help turn around someone else's health for the better.