Skin allergy sufferers, what's a good place to buy bathing/hair care products, specifically shampoo?

Oooh….the skin allergies! the only thing i would do, is talk to your doctor! they will recommend a shampoo that does wonders for your hair, and WONT get your allergies flaring up! :) GOOD LUCK!

@howto: Actually I already did talk with two allergy specialists about it, and neither of them had any suggestions for shampoo besides looking at Whole Foods.

I’m so sorry! That sounds so annoying. I’m allergic to benzoyl peroxide, which is easy to avoid, I can’t imagine being allergic to SLS. It’s in most all toothpastes. Is it just on your skin, but gums as well?

Natural products will be more expensive, but Whole Foods seems to be the most expensive. In my area, we have other natural food markets, which supply the types of products you are looking for I can PM you a link to one near me, so you get an idea of what I’m talking about. Also, regular grocery stores always have that one aisle of natural products…they have soaps and things. I get my sons soap there. The brand is Kiss my Face I looked at the ingredients of their shampoos/conditioners, and I think you’d be alright. Seems like you’d have to try things with oils in them to see if the fragrances have a reaction…unless you’re just allergic to fake fragrances, these would be natural.

I had a friend who used to sell those, but I can’t remember the name of the line. This site has a list of products in each category. (Scroll down to the chart.)

I use Burt’s Bee’s citrus body wash as shampoo. It gets your hair squeaky clean. You could try Dr. Bronner’s stuff as well. But if you use products that contain silicones, neither of those will remove them from your hair so I’d suggest you not put silicones in your hair

Try a natural or holistic living store.

Try this place . I order a laundry additive for dustmites and the stuff that I put on my cat (who is an allergen factory) from this company.

I like Jason’s Tea Tree shampoo. You could go to your local natural foods store. The one in my area has a few aisles of beauty and hygiene products.

Dr. Bronner is your dude.

One of the biggest difficulties with some skin conditions, according to the, um, dozen? dermatologists who’ve treated me over the years is that each case is different in each sufferer.

So I cannot suggest one place for you to buy anything, but rather I will suggest you try every place and every product until you find some combination that works for you.

Perhaps you would benefit from the old wisdom that most of us shampoo too often, anyway?

Tell you what — I’ll experiment with something next time I wash my hair. Instead of shampoo, I’ll use L’Occitane’s Extra Gentle Shea Milk soap. Maybe that won’t be a disaster; I’ll pass on the results of the test.

@casheroo: I had no idea it was in toothpaste! I’m definitely going to check mine before I use it tonight! Thanks for the tip!

@aprilsimnel: I looked around the website, and everything looked really cool!
but I couldn’t seem to find any shampoo? I found soaps, hair conditioners…I even searched for shampoo and the only product that came up was a book….What am I missing?

You can use the liquid soap as a shampoo. It’s basically Castile soap, and each one has a different natural oil as an ingredient, like eucalyptus or lavender and so on.

From @Marina‘s link: http://www.remediesdirect.com/sls-free-shampoo.html

@La_chica_gomela Yeah, it’s pretty scary that it’s in our toothpaste :(

OK, instead of shampoo, I scrubbed my hair and scalp with L’Occitane’s Extra Gentle Shea Milk soap, which after decades of experimentation has shown itself to be the least harmful to my body.

When it’s dry, I’ll test for bounce, shine, manageability and other Madison Avenue qualities.

You might try no-poo, which is basically just washing your hair with baking soda and water. It works really well if your hair is on the thin/fine side; it’s a bit more difficult if you have thicker hair.

What works well for me is to use Dr Bronner’s bar soap (hello, @aprilsimnel) and then follow that with both the baking soda and vinegar rinse.

Or if that’s little to hippy for you, try using shampoo bars. (These work really well for me, and others. I found out that my hair doesn’t really need conditioner. Ever.)

And finally, try looking for itty-bitty companies that make shampoo. The small, hand-made places tend to NOT use SLS or any weird chemicals.

Good luck!

There’s also the well-named Lush, which has a number of SLS-free products for the skin and hair. They also sell make-up if you’re into that sort of thing.

I just found a great website for how to avoid allergens and other dangerous products! It’s www.cosmeticdatabase.com. I did an advanced search for shampoos with exclusions of all the things I’m allergic to, and I got more than four thousand results! I haven’t sorted through all of them, but I did see “Kiss My Face” on the list of healthier products @casheroo!

@La_chica_gomela Oh darn, I should have given you that link! I use it all the time. I wasn’t even thinking. I’m glad it has helped you!