Sorry so late on this. It is probably not so much biased as it is comman sense. Farming anything in mass quantities is going to take a toll. Everyone likes to think that natural products are being grown by some adorable hippy couple in overalls on their small plot of land. Just as somehow electric cars have been the next save the planet idea. You know how much energy it takes to power batteries? Or all the batteries that aren’t in use will do to the environment?
Yes natural ingredients probably are better for the world if, you are buying your face wash from the couple in over-alls down the street and they only sell their products in a 5mile radius at a roadside stand. But if you are in Cali and the natural face wash you buy is in New Jersey and they are a big enough company for you to have heard about them and you’re ordering on the internet. Well then, you may have not added more foot prints in the sand but you sure as shit didn’t stop walking on the beach.

I’ve been doing a lot of research and will continue to do more research until I find the healthiest product on the market.

Thank you Lab Muffin!

Thanks for this fabulous article, which was beautifully written and informative at a level I could understand without getting a headache 😆 Happy to have found your site as I slowly become better educated about skincare and fragrances. Until recently I didn’t realise how much I had absorbed the negative bias against ‘unpronounceable ingredients’, happily we are never too old to learn!

I haven’t seen anyone do an overview of all the ingredients out there (I imagine it’ll be quite difficult to try to do head to head comparisons, given different ingredient potencies and sources), but Jen of The Eco Well has mentioned a lot of examples before!

Hi, do you have a source for the claim that natural ingredients often have a higher carbon footprint?

I think people dream sometimes . writing scientific research articles takes time, you read the information for free, do not pay a cent for it and complain that there is an affiliate link! Especially knowing how few one can earn on those links I find it so terrible how people are! What do you offer to others for free? Only your complaints? Thank you, Michelle, for your work, unbiased opinions with a real scientific background. I would ban unthankfullness and people who are so far away from reality

>in much the same way that non-organic hemp will contain whatever pesticide was used on it

This is incorrect – propylene glycol and butylene glycol are compounds, whereas hemp is a complex mixture. Compounds by definition are the same regardless of source. This is basic high school chemistry: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z463rwx/revision/2

Skin irritation can be caused by many otherwise harmless substances including water. Allergens are also usually harmful to a very small subset of the population and harmless to the rest – if you think about common allergens, you’ll know that most of the population tends not to have issues with them e.g. fish, peanuts.

I think the reason you seem to be perceiving an “extremism towards lab chemicals” is that appeal to nature is a very strongly rooted fallacy. I think it shows from your characterisation of nature vs science as binary opposites, when science actually encompasses the study of both natural and synthetic substances. This article might help with clearing up some of those misconceptions: https://labmuffin.com/natural-vs-chemical-which-is-better/

The article has a toxicologist explaining the basics of toxicology – you can find this in any introduction to toxicology textbook e.g. https://www.wiley.com/en-au/Toxicology+and+Risk+Assessment%3A+A+Comprehensive+Introduction%2C+2nd+Edition-p-9781119135913

Your responses imply that you have a bias for unnatural products, and a bias against natural ones. Do you have references to sources that back you up, instead of just linking back to your own articles?

You are specifically talking about links that you find no problems with. The person you are replying to, however, did not mention links at all. You literally decided what you were going to argue against and went with it, even though the original comment had nothing to do with what you were arguing. That’s a strawman, my friend.
I tend to agree with their comment. I was excited to find this page, only to see it showed a bias for painting all synthetically derived chemicals in a good light. The article writer Michelle skimmed over the topics that would potentially make propylene glycol and butylene glycol look back – such as how they are derived (which does matter, by the way – in much the same way that non-organic hemp will contain whatever pesticide was used on it or in the soil around it, because they are extreme bio-accumulators; so much so they were they first successful item used in soil remediation projects after Chernobyl!) Coming from organic soils and pesticide-free crops makes a huge difference in the safety of hemp products. This is but one of tons of examples I could provide that negates the claim that where something is derived from doesn’t matter. If you’re going to claim how it’s derived has no affect, than you have to show your work – not merely say it’s so.
She also didn’t explain why these supposedly completely harmless products could cause skin irritation or allergic responses. Generally speaking, how or why something causes skin irritation is something to be explored and explained, rather than glossed over.
This is just one article, and I can see an extremism towards lab chemicals that uses the tired, dismissive antics of calling anyone who disagrees “Fear-mongering”, or essentially anti-science.
As a huge advocate of the scientific method and the work of many different kinds of scientists, I also recognize the folly in assuming science can do no wrong, or believing everything to be set in stone after a few studies. Science is about learning, exploration, discovery, and trying to create the best explanations for the things we see and discover. It does not make proclamations about truth, and any good scientist worth her salt would stick to the facts, and throw their biases out the door. Even studies on make-up products and their ingredients are full of bias and agendas – who do you think does most of these studies?
All this to say, keep an open mind, and stop arguing against things people haven’t even said. That’s the way a good scientist would operate 😉