Over the last 200 years with advances in chemistry and science, uncountable manmade chemicals have been created, marketed, and sold to the general public promising better health, beauty, and longevity. It would require a lifetime to evaluate every chemical, its merits, and impact on humans. What we will present on this page are the basic chemicals that were historically used.
I am not necessarily saying that everything old is better than everything new. However, our experience with chemicals that have been created over the past few centuries is limited versus those that have been used for millennia. We still don’t understand the totality of the impacts of these chemicals on humans within their lifetimes and across generations. Most data is based on limited lab research rather than human experience.
Also, why should we continuously pay for and expose ourselves to synthetic chemical cocktails? In my opinion, most chemicals are unnecessary and mainly serve a marketing purpose to increase the price of what should be a low-cost basic product. For example, are synthetic dyes in your body wash necessary for cleaning your body? Or are they added for aesthetic purposes that make the product more marketable and costly than a clear liquid?
The lye used can be sodium hydroxide (NaOH) for hard bar soaps or potassium hydroxide (KOH) for liquid soaps. By themselves, they are caustic and corrosive substances that require Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to handle. Mixing a small amount with vegetable or animal fats induces saponification, which is a fancy way of saying the fats are converted into soap by mixing the fatty acids with a lye base.
* Note: Soaps are not to be confused with detergents. Most liquid body and hand washes are technically detergents, not soaps. Detergents make use of synthetic surfactants like Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES). Synthetic surfactants first appeared on the scene in the mid-1800s and really took off in the 1900s.
In the late-1800s, the first synthetic fibers since synthetic glass from antiquity were developed, and accelerated by the discovery of oil. Many synthetic fibers you know today such as polyester and nylon, are petroleum-based fibers. Because they are cheaper to produce than natural fibers, they are found in most clothing today.
Fresh water in nature generally contains 0.1 ppm of natural fluoride vs 1 ppm found in municipal fluoridated water. The idea that fluoride is added to water for dental health does not hold water with me [pun intended] because fluoridated toothpastes contain 1500 ppm of fluoride and mouthwashes contain 200 ppm. So why is the additional fluoride necessary, especially considering it will be swallowed?