Massage Cream Ingredients

[Master Mister]

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[Earl W]

I found the information very useful. I am not a chemist, thus I am not aware of which chemicals are harmful and which are harmless. Just as I am not an aromatherapist, so I don't know which of the natural products are harmful and which are harmless.

While I do try to use less "toxic" ingredients, sticking mostly with jojoba oil and lotions with only a very few familiar ingredients, it helps to know which lab-derived ingredients are least likely to be a problem.

As far as preservatives, well, I'm getting rather tired of pitching bottles or drums of lotion that have gone smelly or off-color in just a couple of weeks due to microbial contamination. In such cases, I am inclined to choose lotions or creams that have something known to preserve or prevent microbial growth. bleh.

I didn't see it as petulant or a tantrum at all. Nice attack. I did, however, see alot of facts presented from a chemist's perspective, which, hey, that's what he said he was.

Now... what to do about the brand new bottle of "all 100% natural ingredient lotion" that I JUST purchased, that smells faintly of spoiled banana peels?

One last thought for now... I saw a lotion in this list that contains hazelnut oil. I guess if someone uses that one, they better have an epi-pen in their office to use on people like me. Doesn't matter if it's 100% natural and organic, it's a known allergen for a small perceneforum.xxxe of the population, just like peanut oil. Yet there are LMTs that still use it without a second thought because it is "natural."

(Maybe these last few posts should be broken out into a new thread?)

 

[Augustus]

I'm taking that last post of mine down. Not because I have changed my mind about any of it, but because my feelings about this kind of thing aren't germane to the topic of this sticky. Sorry for the derail.

 

[ivy_lmt]

regardless of what jack thinks, i like to know what i'm using. i like to look at the list (like i do with my food) and know what it is and that it's not full of chemicals. this is for my clients safety as well as my own. afterall i'm absorbing the highest amount of lotion. i think all of these posts belong on this thread since it's still related to the topic.

breathe, i have allergies listed on my intake form and ask again if they are allergic to nuts.

 

[Ronny]

I don't discourage anyone from reading the ingredient list, but that is only the beginning of understanding. Every massage product, whether it be olive oil or a lotion with a dozen ingredients listed, is "full of chemicals." For example, we kid ourselves if we think "olive oil" is less "full of chemicals" than a bottle of lotion with a dozen ingredients listed. "Olive oil" is a simply a two word shorthand for literally hundreds of chemicals, including many chemicals known to cause cancer. Therefore, it's not surprising that some people are very sensitive to olive oil, and there are a number of massage therapists who cannot use it for that reason.

To look at another "natural" ingredient, based on your February 22 post, let's look at sodium hydroxymethylglycinate. Member Blisss listed this ingredient as, "Derived from glycine, which is a naturally occurring amino acid. Used as a preservative. No adverse effects." However, according to to US patent 4,337,269, its synthesis is from a solution of glycine, sodium hydroxide and formaldehyde. And in aqueous solution, sodium hydroxymethylglycinate decomposes to sodium glycinate and formaldehyde. Experimental data demonstrate that sodium hydroxymethylglycinate is a potential allergen, and exposure to formaldehyde solutions can cause irritation of the skin and allergic contact dermatitis. Exposure to formaldehyde vapor can provoke skin reactions in sensitized individuals even when airborne concentrations of formaldehyde are well below 1 ppm. Long term exposure to formaldehyde has been shown to be associated with an increased risk of cancer of the nose and accessory sinuses, nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal cancer, and lung cancer in humans.

Does that mean it's unsafe to use a product containing a formaldehyde releaser like sodium hydroxymethylglycinate? According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences / National Institutes of Health, formaldehyde is also a naturally synthesized product within the human body as a natural metabolite of methanol. The human body therefore has a built-in mechanism to metabolize formaldehyde, and this metabolic pathway must be overwhelmed before adverse affects are observed. However, because each person reacts differently, it is hard to say at exactly what level of exposure adverse affects begin to occur.

It would be nice if safety could be established simply by reading an ingredient list. But just as olive oil is "full of chemicals", safety isn't so simple.