I want to do a little (Or not so little) post on All Natural Products and Preservatives. St.Johns Soap Works make many All Natural Preservative Free products including our Healing Hemp, our Calendula, our Body Butters, Soaps, Lip Balms and Bath Bombs. What all these products have in common is that they are made Without Water (Soap uses water for the chemical process but at the end of the process no water remains so no preservative is needed). Some of our products including our lotions do have preservatives. These products are 99% Natural the 1% is the preservative. I am asked why I use a preservative or not an all natural preservative in these products and here is why. ANY product that is made with water, that includes all lotions, shampoos, conditioners, body washes, and facial creams, need to have a broad spectrum preservative. There are NO all natural broad spectrum preservatives that will prevent against all forms of microbial growth. But lets start with What is a preservative? Preservatives help prevent microbial growth in our products,Fungus, bacteria, Mold and yeast. You can make products without preservatives but they must be kept in the fridge and have a shelf life of a week and even then there are no guarantees. Ok then so what about Natural Preservatives? Vitamin E is NOT a preservative. It is an anti-oxidant that can help retard rancidity, but it is not a preservative that will prevent microbial growth. Citric acid is NOT a preservative. It can be used as an anti-oxidant that can help retard rancidity but does not prevent growth. Grapefruit seed extract is NOT a preservative.It may behave as an anti-oxidant but it will not keep the micros out of your products. Studies show that GSE can attribute its preservative qualities to the preservatives added to the Grapefruit seed extract itself! Essential oils are NOT preservatives. They have anti-microbial features but none of them have been proven to be effective preservatives. So what does that leave us with? Man made preservatives. There are many. The one I use is liquid Germall Plus. It contains propylene glycol (60%), diazolidinyl urea (39.6%), and iodopropynyl butylcarbamate (0.6%). Its a broad spectrum liquid preservative that should be used at 0.1% to 0.5% It is paraben free.I use this one because it has no effect on the products i make as far as changing texture, it is a fantastic broad spectrum preservative preventing all types of growth across the board and at 0.5-1% I only need a tiny amount to do the job. Keep in mind that you do not need to see mold, yeast, fungus in your products for it to be there and for you to get sick. Ok thats my spiel :) To sum up read labels and ask questions even the makers of products especially handmade body products may not be educated enough so educate yourself so you can keep yourself safe. And if you want to avoid all preservatives then stick to products made without water. Just for fun (lol fun) Ive added a video on mold growth its actually really neat to watch. https://youtube/watch?v=JsQHWj2RfXg
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 01:04:46 +0000