Bloom Baby Shampoo

Details

A separate hair wash for once there is enough hair to need one, and the whole of this listing is about the claim we are not making. No more tears, tear-free and no tears are not regulated terms. There is no defined method behind any of them, no threshold to meet and no report to produce. A claim you cannot fail is not a claim, and the vacuum is exactly why a long-running story says tearless formulas work by dulling the eye rather than by being milder. That story is not established and the products in question carry no named anaesthetic. But notice that nothing published can settle it either way, because the phrase itself has no test attached. So we do not print it. We print the test. The measure is OECD Test Guideline 492, the reconstructed human cornea-like epithelium assay. A finished sample of this shampoo is applied to living human corneal tissue and viability is read afterwards. Above 60 percent viability the material is not classified as an eye irritant under the UN GHS. This one reads 78.4 percent. The in-vivo Draize rabbit test is the other way that question used to be answered, and it is not available to us: India has prohibited animal testing of cosmetics since 2014 and prohibits importing cosmetics tested on animals, and that position carries into the Cosmetics Rules 2020. We would not run it if it were available. Two more numbers finish the picture. Measured pH is 7.0, against a tear film that sits near 7.4, which is why a stray drop behaves closer to water than to the pH 9.6 soap bar on this same shelf. And the surfactant system is sugar-derived and amino-acid-derived, at 4.8 percent active solids, printed below. That 4.8 is the honest version of the 10 percent that appears on an ingredient deck, because glucoside surfactants arrive as roughly half-strength solutions and almost nobody separates the two figures.

• Full INCI, in descending order: Aqua, Coco-Glucoside, Decyl Glucoside, Glycerin, Sodium Cocoyl Glutamate, Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower Extract, Phenoxyethanol, Caprylyl Glycol, Sodium Citrate, Xanthan Gum, Citric Acid, Ethylhexylglycerin, Sodium Phytate
• With percentages: Aqua 86.1, Coco-Glucoside 5.0, Decyl Glucoside 3.0, Glycerin 2.0, Sodium Cocoyl Glutamate 2.0, Chamomilla Recutita Flower Extract 0.5, Phenoxyethanol 0.4, Caprylyl Glycol 0.3, Sodium Citrate 0.2, Xanthan Gum 0.2, Citric Acid 0.1, Ethylhexylglycerin 0.1, Sodium Phytate 0.1, which totals 100.0
• Active surfactant solids 4.8 percent. Coco-Glucoside and Decyl Glucoside are supplied at about 52 percent active and Sodium Cocoyl Glutamate at about 30, so 10.0 percent as added is 4.8 percent as surfactant
• Ocular irritation to OECD TG 492, tissue viability 78.4 percent against a 60 percent threshold. UN GHS No Category. This is the number the slogan would replace
• Measured pH 7.0. Tear fluid sits near 7.4. Glucoside surfactants are also at their most stable near neutral, so the pH that suits the eye and the pH that suits the chemistry are the same one here
• No SLS and no SLES, and what replaced them is named above: two alkyl polyglucosides and one amino-acid surfactant at 4.8 percent active in total
• No cocamidopropyl betaine, which is the usual replacement when a shampoo goes sulphate-free. It is a recognised contact allergen through its amidoamine and dimethylaminopropylamine residues, and swapping one problem for a quieter one is not a free-from claim
• Paraben-free, and the replacement is stated rather than implied: Phenoxyethanol 0.4 percent with Caprylyl Glycol 0.3 and Ethylhexylglycerin 0.1, chelated with Sodium Phytate 0.1 in place of EDTA. No MIT, no CMIT, no formaldehyde donor
• Phenoxyethanol is at 0.4 and not the 1.0 percent the European SCCS permits, because the French ANSM assessed products for children under three and recommended 0.4. Where two regulators disagree on a baby product, we take the lower one
• Sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate are not usable here, and that is worth saying plainly because they are used in the Top-to-Toe Wash. Benzoic acid has a pKa of 4.2 and only the undissociated acid preserves, so at pH 7.0 only 0.16 percent of it is in the acid form and it does effectively nothing. The pH decided the preservative, not the other way round
• Fragrance-free, so no parfum, no essential oil and none of the 26 EU declarable components. Phthalates by GC-MS for the six esters, none detected. No talc anywhere in Bloom
• Honest trade-off one: it lathers less than an adult shampoo, because 4.8 percent active surfactant is less than half what one carries. Foam is not cleaning, but it is what most people read as cleaning
• Honest trade-off two: decyl glucoside has itself been reported as a contact sensitiser, uncommonly. It is here at 3.0 percent as added, 1.56 percent active, and if a child reacts to this shampoo that is the ingredient to suspect first
• Honest trade-off three, and no formulation escapes it: enough of any shampoo in an eye stings. What a mild one changes is the damage