Everyday Body Wash

Details

A daily wash for the whole household, including skin that itches after a hot shower. It cleans on coco-glucoside, cocamidopropyl betaine and sodium cocoyl glutamate at pH 5.5, with glycerine at 6 percent and oat kernel extract left behind. Sulphate-free is where this category cheats, and it cheats in two specific ways worth naming. The first is sodium C14-16 olefin sulfonate, which is a sulfonate and not a sulfate, so the front of the pack is telling the truth while the wash strips about as hard as the SLES it replaced. The second is sodium coco-sulfate, which sounds like a coconut ingredient and is in fact a sulfate mixture whose largest single component is sodium lauryl sulfate; it exists so that a bottle can carry an SLS-free line. Neither is in here. What replaced the sulphates is written above, with percentages, and the honest consequence of that swap is written below. The second thing this category does is short-fill, so the tested fill is printed as a weight rather than left as a number moulded into the bottle.

• No sulphate and no sulfonate. No SLS, no SLES, no sodium coco-sulfate, no sodium C14-16 olefin sulfonate
• What replaced them: Coco-Glucoside at 5.0 percent, Cocamidopropyl Betaine at 4.5 percent, Sodium Cocoyl Glutamate at 3.5 percent and Disodium Cocoyl Glutamate at 1.5 percent, for a total active surfactant matter of 14.5 percent, tested
• Full INCI in descending order: Aqua, Glycerin (6.0 percent), Coco-Glucoside (5.0 percent), Cocamidopropyl Betaine (4.5 percent), Sodium Cocoyl Glutamate (3.5 percent), Disodium Cocoyl Glutamate (1.5 percent), Avena Sativa Kernel Extract (1.0 percent), Panthenol (0.8 percent), Xanthan Gum, Sodium Benzoate, Citric Acid, Potassium Sorbate, Sodium Phytate
• Preservative named: sodium benzoate 0.5 percent with potassium sorbate 0.3 percent, which is why the pH must stay below 5.5. No methylisothiazolinone, no formaldehyde donor, no paraben
• Measured pH 5.5, which is where skin sits and where it matters most in hard city water
• Fragrance-free, and nothing masking it. No parfum, no essential oil, no masking agent, so it smells faintly of oat and surfactant and of nothing else
• Tested fill: 250 ml net, filled by weight to 258 g at a measured density of 1.032 g per ml. The 500 ml is 516 g and the 1 litre pouch is 1,032 g, all checked per lot
• Sodium phytate as the chelator in place of EDTA, which is what keeps hard water from leaving a scum on the skin
• Honest trade-off: glucosides and glutamates lather moderately and thickly rather than explosively, and a wash that does not squeak has not failed, it has left your barrier alone
• Second trade-off: the refill pouch is a laminate and cannot be recycled kerbside in most Indian cities. It uses roughly 70 percent less plastic per litre than the equivalent bottles, which is a reduction and not a solution, and we would rather say that than print a leaf on it