Examining Everyday Products, Research Paper Example

The morning routine is perhaps the part of each person’s that is carried out the most robotically. We often step into the bathroom, shower, brush our teeth, shave, comb our hair, and undertake numerous other sanitary practices without stopping to think about any of it. For us, the routine has been optimized through so many years that there is little need to reconsider any of it. In fact, even ancillary parts of our morning routine can become routine themselves. When going out to shop for the products needed in our daily quest to get clean, we find the products we have enjoyed in the past and continue to purchase them. Not only do our actions become thoughtless, the products used in those actions become the same.

Yet, there is danger in this way of acting. Some may feel that a robotic way of approaching this daily regimen frees them up to concentrate on other things, yet how do we know about its effectiveness if we never examine it? Most people do not pick their new shampoo based on double blind studies about its effectiveness, but pick it due to the success of its marketing campaign or packaging in grabbing our attention. A product with a memorable advertisement gets used once and if it satisfies some low level criteria, it becomes a routine for us to buy it repeatedly. At no point does anyone consider whether or not a shampoo is the best value for their needs and the impact it has on society is completely ignored.

One such product used in my daily routine is Axe shampoo and conditioner. I have no recollection of why I began using it, as the usual Axe marketing campaign in which girls go crazy over any man who has used an Axe product is amongst the most irritating I have ever seen. Likely someone bought it for me the first time or somehow the label caught my eye when I was not sure what kind of shampoo I wanted. I continue to use it because I like how it makes my hair, but this could easily be me associating good qualities of my hair to a product not responsible for any of it. This paper will therefore delve deeper into a product that I regularly purchase despite not being able to produce any good reason for doing so.

This product comes with a long list of ingredients, most of which are immediately not recognizable to the average consumer. Ingredients such as water, Blue 1, and Yellow 5 seem to have obvious enough functions in the product, but what purpose do complex sounding ingredients such as Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Dimethiconol, Glycol Distearate, Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonim Chloride, TEA-Dodecylbenzenesulfonate, Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, or Methylisothiazolinone serve (Daily Med)? This is perhaps part of the problem with the lack of information most people know about their daily products. Axe is required to print all of the information on their products, but complex chemical compound names like this are out of the understanding of just about all of their users. The company may put these names on the bottle, but truly there is no real information given by these names, just a place to start research for those who take the time.

The second ingredient listed after water is sodium laureth sulfate. which is put into many cleaning products as it makes them foam up more easily. This obviously adds some value to the product by making it easier to use, but it does not come without some health risks. According to the American Journal of Toxicology, it can cause skin irritation and corrosion in concentrations well below what can be easily found in many consumer products (ACT 1983). The body also struggles to metabolize this ingredient, meaning that it remains on our skin for long periods of times before we can remove it fully and that it usually enters the body after sitting in our skin and hair tissues.

Another potentially harmful product in Axe shampoo, as well as a host of other similar products is glycol disterate. Its stated function is as a moisturizer, but like seemingly everything else, it has a good deal of unintended side effects. For one, it makes shampoo thicker and therefore guarantees that more of the product is used each time. On top of that, there are very few sufficient toxicology studies on the substance, meaning that its true effects are largely unknown (Bunn). It is worth wondering if glycol disterate is the only option to moisturize due to its not known qualities, but since it gets consumers to unwittingly use and therefore buy more of the product, its usage is not likely to stop.

On top of these potentially universally harmful ingredients, Axe contains allergens that are damaging to some portion of customers. Methylchloroisothiazolinone is a basic preservative in Axe and other shampoos as it fights bacteria and fungi from developing. However, it must be used in small concentrations to be safe for any skin contact. Even in small doses, approximately two to three percent of individuals who use it will develop an allergic reaction, typically in the form of a rash at the area of contact (Zoller). Another preservative, methylisothiazolinone, also causes allergic reactions and tissue damages when concentrated (Schnuch). Yet, preservatives are not needed for basic shampoo ingredients. A shampoo that is largely detergent would have no danger of going bad. Essentially, additives are introduced to shampoos for purely cosmetic reasons with the result that more and more additives need to be added to control the initial additives.

However, the potential problems with shampoos go beyond the damage that can be done to the individual consumer, and Axe is no exception. A huge number of its ingredients are potential pollutants that are harmful in high enough concentrations. The composition of Axe guarantees that none of them will be too highly concentrated within the bottle, but shampoos end up in public water systems and it is unclear if they can effectively all be eliminated through the filtration systems. Even if they can, these added chemicals surely place increased stress and force adjustments in the public water filtration services. The best case scenario is that increased additives only make the system work harder, while the worst case scenario is that they cause real environmental damage.

Another concern with Axe involves their parent company, Unilever. Unilever is one of the largest consumer product makers in the planet, with many different brand names in similar markets to their Axe products. However, they have been connected in the past with exploitation of labor to help them reach their huge market share. One could expect their laborers to be in dangerous situations considering the chemicals they are working with, but in some cases Unilever labor practices have been even more extreme than that. In 2003, the company along with many others was charged with supporting child labor, specifically be purchasing from Indian cotton farms that used children as young as six in substandard working conditions (Fraser). Due to the huge horizontal integration of a company like Unilever, supporting a product like Axe blindly without looking into the company that backs the product can lead to support of unethical labor practices in cotton markets across the world.

Unilever has also been accused of exploiting adult laborers as well. One of their brands is Lipton tea, which involves the use of labor in Pakistan. A large company such as Unilever will have more power than almost any individual worker and therefore often be able to negotiate extremely favorable terms with their employees, a situation that becomes worse when dealing with third world workers. Lipton was accused of doing that in Pakistani factories, in which the vast majorities of workers were hired on a temporary basis. If these workers ever attempted to strike, they would be fired immediately (Labor Rights). Effectively, the factory had denied the laborers their right to organization. While this again is not occurring directly in the production of Axe, it is worth nothing that the if this is tolerated in some areas of the company, it is reasonable to suspect that it is in other sectors as well.

It is difficult to avoid brands like Axe, but there is also continued danger in the continued patronage of such a company. For one, the shampoo product contains great dealers of additives designed for purposes other than cleaning ones hair. Would a simpler detergent and water shampoo work just as well while avoiding the need for chemicals to create odors and others to preserve those and still others to hopefully suppress the allergenic tendencies of another? More consumers probably cannot answer this question because they have never tried a more natural alternative. By not looking at the problems with a product one is using, someone can never notice how many options they are neglecting.

However, another problem with a product like Axe is the damage it can inflict on others who do not use it. Most people agree that it is good to be moral and accept a version of morality that takes the well being of other humans and sometimes all other life forms on the Earth. For this reason, a product like Axe is likely one that many would avoid if they had researched it somewhat. Axe contributes to environmental damage due to the great deal of toxic chemicals used in their production. This negatively affects plant life and animals, but also human beings as our water supply and other natural resources get contaminated. On top of this, Axe belongs to a larger company that has been exploitive of workers in the past. Their willingness to do this indicates a potential willingness to do this within the Axe brand. For this reason, purchasing the product may be providing money to and implying support for labor exploitation including child labor. For reasons such as this, the average person should think more about the products they routinely use. If these issues exist with Axe, they likely do in other similarly purposed products.

Works Cited

Schnuch, J. Geier, W. Utur, P. J. Frosch: “Patch testing with preservatives, antimicrobials and industrial biocides. Results from a multicentre study”, British Journal of Dermatology, 137(3), 467-476 (1998).

“Axe Antidandruff Armor Two in One.” Daily Med. Web. 24 May 2012. <http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/drugInfo.cfm?id=26690>.

Bunn, Bill. “SALON.” What’s Really in Your Shampoo? Web. 24 May 2012. <http://www.salon.com/2009/08/13/shampoo/>.

Fraser, Simon. “Unilever Denies Child Labour Link.” BBC News. BBC, 05 June 2003. Web. 24 May 2012. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3005059.stm>.

“Report of the American College of Toxicology in to the Safety of Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS).” American College of Toxicology. 1983. Web. 24 May 2012. <http://www.natural health-information-centre.com/sls-JACT-report.html>.

“Unilever Lipton Workers.” International Labor Rights Forum. Web. 24 May 2012. <http://www.laborrights.org/end-violence-against-trade-unions/unilever-lipton-workers>.

Zoller L, Bergman R, Weltfriend S. (2006). “Preservatives sensitivity in Israel: a 10-year overview (1995-2004)”. Contact Dermatitis 55 (4): 227–9.