Triclosan

Bath and Body Antibacterial Hand Soap...ahhhh. It smells so good. I first came across it at my mom's house and was shocked to see anything other her regular bar of ivory soap. I thought "Hmmm, getting fancy around here". It had those little beady things in it like the tapioca balls in bubble tea, and it was called something luxurious like brown sugar and fig. Soon, I began seeing it in bathrooms at my more soap-savvy friends' places. At the time we were working through a giant vat of generic brand "moisturizing soap" that was making my hands look like October leaves - so I was pretty envious of the "fancy soap people". It was popping up in mouth watering varieties like citrus basil and mango mandarin everywhere I went. Mmmmm. Varieties that sound good enough to eat, but alas, not. In fact, I've come to the conclusion that it's not even close to being good enough to rub on my hands.
This soap, and many others, contains Triclosan as its antibacterial agent. Triclosan was news to me during my fateful encounter with Slow Death by Rubber Duck. It struck me that the authors had found so much of it in their own blood samples after just a short time of using antibacterial soaps. I did a bit of surfing around and found that CBC Marketplace did an in depth story about it which they called "The Dirt on Clean". The links to all the original studies can be found on their site. I'll sum it up for you:

-there is evidence that triclosan mixes with chlorine in tap water to create a "probable human carcinogen"
-triclosan is found in the breastmilk and blood of women who use products containing it
-it can get into surface water when washed down the drain. When exposed to sunlight it can break down to form dioxin. While there are many forms of dioxin, they are toxic and take a long time to break down or leave our bodies.
-The American Medical Association is recommending that we limit the use of antimicrobials to reduce the possibility of acquired resistance.

I could go on, but you get the idea. In addition to the plain ick factor of knowing that something is building up in my body, I hate the idea that it's persisting in the environment even longer to come back to me later. argh. It's in more places that you might think. Sometimes called by the brand name "Microban", you might have it in your cutting board, your garbage bags, heck, quite possibly in your mascara.

Some time ago, I made sure to check the ingredients on soaps. It's not just Bath and Body, but some product lines of SoftSoap, Dial, Clearasil, Right Guard, Old Spice...it goes on and on.

I've been making a conscious effort to avoid this ingredient. I gotta admit, I was feeling a little smug. Anyway, last week I was wasting time in the bathroom making sure my kids didn't drown in the tub and I started reading the label on my Colgate Total toothpaste. In tiny print I read...wait for it...0.3%triclosan. Is nothing sacred????

So, this leads me to today's small, expensive step. I bought some health food store toothpaste. No triclosan, no chemical whiteners. Good old fashioned baking soda and ginger concoction. Good news: it works pretty well, tastes good. Bad news: just today when I was double-checking my triclosan research, I read that sodium lauryl sulphate should be avoided (we'll get to that one later). Yes, of course my new $7.49 greener than Kermit toothpaste is the proud home to, yep, sodium lauryl sulphate. Sigh...well, I guess that's why I call them small steps.