That’s really a shower thought…
A shower memory.
I totally thought those were some kind of thing that would dissolve at first. I thankfully just didn’t like those body washes anyway, but I was super disappointed when I found out those ‘exfoliating beads’ were just micro plastic. What evil fuck ok’d that decision?
It didn’t have to be an evil fuck. Could have just been an ignorant fuck. “Do not attribute to malice what can easily be explained by ignorance”.
Disregarding what we know now: it would be great to have an exfoliating bead that didn’t break down or decay. I used it, sometimes, and it worked well for its intended purpose. We just didn’t think anything about it, and they probably didn’t, either.
Hanlon’s Razor should be required curriculum in all schools
It would have been a chemist right? At some point some chemist who knew they don’t dissolve pitched the idea that their company could use microplastics.
A mini wikileaks that acted as a repository for internal emails would be so much fun. Something like https://www.climatefiles.com/collection-index/
Somebody somewhere figured out that you can sell grit to women if you refer to it as “exfoliant.” Because that terrycloth towel you’re going to dry yourself with isn’t nearly rough enough to remove dead skin cells, right girls?
Meanwhile washing a man is mostly a matter of degreasing which is why a man’s shower has one bottle of mostly sodium laurel sulfate in it labeled “everything wash.”
It is as Benjamin Franklin once said: “Life is microplastics, it’s micro-fantastic.”
Damn is that what they were? I thought it was sand
Sand is too expensive
“Now with the cleansing power of asbestos!”
I thought Axe Snakepeel was so cool. I thought it had titanium beads. Turns out, the beads were plastic and titanium (dioxide) was normal soap stuff (though I think just to artificially make the soap opaque). It disappeared before I was aware
Titanium dioxide is often used as a white pigment
I work in the plastics industry. TiO2 is definitely our pigment of choice for white colorant
I remember ads claiming it was cutting edge nanotechnology! And I thought oh cool, you mean like there are tiny robots running around in the shampoo? But no, it was microplastics.
Hold up- when I read micro infiltrated blood, Intuit breast milk, glaciers etc, I pictured microscopic. You’re telling me plastic materials large enough to see and feel are what they’re referring to?
As I understand it, there’s a range of sizes that are problematic, from small to micro to nano and beyond.
The problem is the more plastic we make, and the smaller it starts, the easier it is for it to get worn down into smaller and smaller bits that become more problematic for us.
One of the problems with all the macro plastics in the ocean is that that as they get churned up and baked in the UV from the sun, smaller and smaller bits break off and become part of the… Everything.
Micro plastics are so prevalent that they can’t even do proper studies on how harmful it might be to us, because there are no control groups that have no plastics inside their bodies to compare against. Even babies in the womb have plastic in them. You have plastic in you right now, almost a 100% guarantee.
There’s probably more to it than that even, but that’s my understanding of it.
Ahhh… that whole, plastic seeps into your possessions thing… That might be the ocean, not the hot soup in your nalgene. Man… there is a lot of macro in the ocean to break down. I’ve been following environmental news and science for almost 35 years and I keep learning new and exciting shitty things for the first time. It only gets worse!
As opposed to metaphorical microplastics?
Figurative micro plastics.
Micro surgeries
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There is a bar soap currently for sale that does that
Well, ain’t that old fashioned - bar soap! I can remember my Mother and Grandmother making soap every fall at home. Stuff could take the hide right off you some years, but you got clean for sure. It also made a fine laundry soap too. I can remember watching my Mother shave slivers of it off into the washing machine when I was little.
But thanks for reminding me, I need to put bar soap on my shopping list. I need to also order another puck of shaving soap too.
I use bars of goat soap. It makes your skin feel really soft. I buy it at my local antique mall.
The problem with homemade soap like he was talking about is if it has too much potash left. Then it turns you into soap. Since you never know how much potassium carbonate any given plants will produce it’s hit or miss.
I’m surprised there weren’t any news stories this year of “mysterious burns on forehead” from ash Wednesday.
There is a local woman that makes and sells some home-made goat milk bar soap. She has a small herd of milking goats. It’s quite nice and I buy a few bars from her during the county fair every year.
Is bar soap really considered old fashioned now?
In a tongue in cheek manor - kind of. If you go actually look at the shelves when you go to buy some soap, you will find all kinds of liquid and foaming soaps/body washes that promise all kinds of things to make you cleaner and more radiant and smell better. And those tend to populate the eye level shelves to make them easier to notice. And the bar soaps are tend to be on the lower shelves. Making them less noticeable and a bit harder to see.
Is it advertised with plastic in it or just an abrasive? I have a scrub that contains walnut shell to exfoliate the skin
Not sure. Doesnt have a rough texture so may be plastic microbeads. Havent seen any upclose as theyre colormatched to the bar which reinforces the plastics theory
Its not even a decade ago. Its closer to 5 years ago that they got banned
Exfoliating plastics!
A few years ago there was a brand in some shops with literal pearls of something suspended in the gel.
Not very unlikely they were just plastic pearls.
