PAINTING WITH LIGHT EXPERIMENT

Photo Essay: CONTACT SHEET

Photo Essay : The Harmful Effects of Shampoo

I chose to use shampoo as a focus point for my photo essay. It is something that we do almost every day and we don’t usually give a second thought as to how it is impacting the environment or even ourselves. For example, most people probably don’t know that while taking a five minute shower, you will use approximately twenty-five gallons of water. Along with that dirty water being washed into the ocean is all of the shampoo you use while taking it. Shampoo contains chemicals such as parobens which leads to breast cancer and also acts as a preservative in various cosmetic products. Thankfully some of these contaminated waters are receiving waste-water treatment. Unfortunately most of these treatments are unable to protect the environment from the chemicals in the shampoos. These shampoos also contain surfactants which remove oil…. Too much oil in fact. Some common ingredients include cocamide which is a foaming agent, glycol distearate which makes the shampoo more opaque and pearlescent as well as thinner, sodium chloride(table salt) is used to thicken the shampoo, widely used preservatives, DMDM hydantoin and imidazolidinyl urea are found in many shampoos and are used to release formaldehyde to kill germs. Formaldehyde  has a characteristic pungent, irritating odor and is believed to be a “human carcinogen” the US National Toxicology Program. I would suggest to many people that you could start using a more organic shampoo or even just research the chemicals in your shampoo. Just being aware will change your outlook on the effects of your shampoo.