SOS (long term, sodium lauryl sulphate) is a detergent which cleanses and foams. It is commonly found in products living within your bathroom cabinet – skincare, shampoo, body washes, toothpaste & even cleaning products. SLS is used to bind water and oil ingredients together which allows us to wash our teeth, faces or dishes to effectively say vamos to dirt and grime.
The big but! SLS can be harmful, irritating, or allergenic to some, with studies showing its ability to both irritate and, more alarmingly, penetrate the skin. In the world of toothpastes – ever noticed irritation to the skin around your mouth, or had mouth ulcers?
SLS makes your toothpaste foamy when you brush, so if you’re accustomed to a foaming experience when you brush your teeth, it’s likely your paste contains a form of SLS. Same goes for other products that have a foaming effect, check the label for SLS as it’s likely to be in there.
It hasn’t yet been banned for use as most commonly, these types of products don’t stay in touch with our bodies for long periods of time, so instead they cap the max. percentage which can be used in products (somewhere between 0.05-2.5%). In Germany, a product cannot be labelled 'natural' if it contains any members of the sulphate family (lauryl, laureth, or ammonium).
So with all of that said, we’re VERY HAPPY to say that from point-go all ROCC formulations are SLS-free because we prefer our pastes toxin-free and mouths free from red rashes – and we actually don’t miss the foaming one bit! (it makes brushing teeth-time neater in fact 😉)
Want to know more about why oral health is so important, check out our blog on "Microbiome, it's not just for guts."
You can read about some of the other toxins we choose to leave out of our toothpastes, like Titanium Dioxide.