What's in your shampoo?

An article in the Daily Mail recently claimed that there was little difference between expensive shampoos and cheaper brands, all found in high street shops.

It revealed that the shampoos from £1 to £50 shared many of the same ingredients and that most are up to 80% aqua (water).

However, look away from the big brands and you will find there are some quite major differences.

Green People shampoos do cost more (around the £10 mark for 200ml) but are made without cheap, harsh ingredients like Sodium lauryl sulphate and Sodium laureth sulphate. These ingredients have been found to irritate skin and can be a cause of scalp itchiness for some. We choose to use gentler alternatives to create the foam in our shampoos.

Another difference is that we base our shampoos on organic aloe vera, not water. This means that our shampoos go a lot further than normal shampoos because they are more concentrated. You need to use such a tiny amount that you will find one bottle lasts far longer than the equivalent mainstream shampoo.

If you have looked at our ingredients, you might be wondering why the aqua is listed first in our ingredients if we don't base our shampoos on it.

This is because we rehydrate our aloe vera from a powder form, which is much cheaper and more eco-friendly to transport, and also does not requite preservatives. We have to list aqua because of this rehydration process.

In addition to this, we also use extracts and essential oils in some of our shampoos which perform special roles.

For example, the Pineapple extract and Rosemary essential oils found in the Rosemary Shampoo work to stimulate the scalp and guard against a build up of dead skin cells.

So, in essence, not all shampoos are quite the same, especially if you look away from mainstream brands and consider organic shampoos that have been carefully formulated with natural ingredients.