When my daughter was two, I thought bubble baths would be fun. I read every label in the health food store searching for the safest, natural bubble option. I was alarmed to find that a majority of the labels had warnings about prolonged exposure and girl’s urinary tract systems. I was also concerned, because a friend of mine swore her daughter developed eczema from a commercial character bubble bath. I was lucky to find Clearly Natural Happy Kidz Bath Bubbles
.
Clearly Natural Happy Kidz Bath Bubbles is sodium lauryl sulfate free and is very gentle on young skin. It has a pleasant aroma, but you do have be careful not to get it into your child’s eyes. Clearly Natural Happy Kidz Bath Bubblesis scented with pure essential oils only. These essential oils are anise, cedar, clove, orange, peppermint, petitgrain spearmint and tangerine. Unfortunately, Clearly Natural Happy Kidz Bath Bubbles newer bottles come with the same urinary tract warning. I wonder just how long prolonged exposure really is. As I dig a little deeper, I notice that it also contains sodium laureth sulfate, which is related to sodium lauryl sulfate. I feel this is somewhat misleading to promote a product as sodium lauryl sulfate free on the front label, while it contains sodium laureth sulfate. Is this ethical?
Perhaps Clearly Natural Happy Kidz Bath Bubbles isn’t the great product I thought it was, but it does make nice bath bubbles! Other natural bath products I have tried do not suds up they way I want, so I have settled on this product. Maybe my children don’t need bubble baths?
If you bubble bath all the time, no matter with what, you’re likely to have skin issues or urinary tract infections.
That said, I let my daughter bubble bath every few weeks, usually with a small chunk off a Lush bubble bar (these have Sodium Laureth Sulfate, too). Their bath bombs don’t, but they don’t bubble, or hardly bubble. (They’re still cool, but you also can’t use just part of one.)
The sulfates are related, yes, and I too feel it is misleading. My son has a serious reaction to either one so I have to be very careful whenever we go out of our “zone” of safe bath products.
California Baby has the safest bubble bath I’ve seen on the market. They even state on their website that it won’t promote bladder or yeast infections.
http://californiababy.com/calming-aromatherapy-bubble-bath-13-oz.html
We just don’t use bubble bath since I had problems as a child and I don’t want that for my daughters. However, thanks for the recommendation, Ashley. I’ll have to look into California Baby. The kids are always pleading for bubble baths so it would be nice if I could find one. Once in a blue moon, I have used Biokleen’s dishwashing liquid to make quick bubbles for them.
Those who want to avoid lauryl sulfate may indeed prefer laureth sulfate, because the latter is milder. Because of the manufacturing process, laureth sulfate does have a little lauryl sulfate in it, less or more depending on the degree of ethoxylation. (Someone at Kao Soap Co. came up with a process to remove the unethoxylated lauryl sulfate from laureth sulfate, but apparently it hasn’t been economical enough to catch on.)