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| The "Can You Pronounce It?" Scam |
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Many manufacturers of items used in the home - from candles, to bath, to makeup - list ingredients of competitor's products, claiming if you can't pronounce it, you shouldn't use it. Well, that's one of the cleverest marketing scams out there. There is a commission that regulates the naming of items on certain items and they have a listing called the INCI. However, what these competitors never mention is that some items have more than one INCI name that can be used to identify ingredients.
Let me ask you something: What does the words dihydrogen monoxide invoke? Would you consume it? It's scary, it's a long word and it contains the word monoxide... that's got to be poisonous right? Actually, we can't live without it. It's the chemical name for water. To illustrate the irony (or perhaps exploit the ignorance) of this, many politicians the world over have been tricked by middle schoolers into campaigning a ban on this substance and some have gone so far as making it onto a ballot before the guffaw was called. Just as innocent as water is technically dihydrogen monoxide, simple glycerin (found in around 95% of soaps and pretty much the most needed ingredient) is also known as trihydroxypropane?
Here is a list of the most common ingredients found in the market as all natural:
Vitamin E
Oat Bran
Shea Butter
Tea Tree Oil
Sunflower Oil
Jojoba Seed Oil
Legally, you can use those names as ingredients (where the INCI regulators deem the chemical names too confusing). Want to know what those are? In the exact same order as above:
Tocopherol
Avena Sativa Bran
Butyrospermum Parkii
Melaleuca Alternifolia
Helianthis Annuus
Simmondsia Chinesis
What can you confidently pronounce? Menacing, perhaps. But it's the exact same list. Just as animals have other names than what's on the plaque at the zoo, natural ingredients are no different. Every single ingredient in the world can be broken down into something natural, since everything is made up of the table of elements. (All together now - Hydrogen, Helium.... bah, nevermind.)
Here are a few fun articles from Snopes.com about the "harsh" chemicals:
http://www.snopes.com/science/dhmo.asp
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/shampoo.asp
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