INGREDIENT WATCH: Sodium Hydroxymethylglycinate

It's Friday! Finally. My favorite day! Today I wanted to give you a heads up on a preservative called Sodium Hydroxymethylglycinate (yeah, it's a mouthful!). I have found way too many companies and websites touting how it is a "natural preservative" or trying to whitewash it by saying it's a gentle preservative based on natural amino acid glycine. Some claim that it's safer and better than parabens because it won't release formaldehyde. Guess what? All false!

Unfortunately, people and companies often get carried away and will do just about anything to make their products more marketable. There's been a large number of "natural" product makers that have been less than truthful by touting Sodium Hydroxymethylglycinate as a natural preservative and I'll repeat again: this is simply NOT true! It is true that it is based on glycine (a natural amino acid) but lets take a look at what they look like chemically. Pictured on top is Glycine and below it is Sodium Hydroxymethylglycinate. Needless to say, it requires an extremely heavy and synthetic industrial process to produce sodium hydroxymethylglycinate.

Some more facts: Sodium Hydroxymethylglycinate is actually a skin and eye irritant. In both test animals and humans. Even after washing with water it can burn your eyes. Some time back, I had a friend who was sprayed in the eye with a facial spray that contained this preservative, and let's just say, he was not very happy! It stung and irritated his eyes for hours.

I personally don't have sensitive skin, not in the least, and have only been bothered by one skincare product to date (thank God!). It was a body scrub that contained sodium hydroxymethylglycinate. Later on, I was doing some product development and was experimenting with this preservative. (And I always test on myself first). To be honest, I was very disappointed by it. It is true that it does have effective preservative properties, covering a broad spectrum of microbes, but its negative qualities are just too much.

Sodium Hydroxymethylglycinate smells highly rancid, and even at concentrations of less than 1% can burn and irritate the skin. I learned this lesson by creating a prototype face spray with even less than 1% Sodium Hydroxymethylglycinate . . . let's just say I was sorry! My usually nonreactive face was red, irritated, itchy and a hot mess. Needless to say, any idea of using it in products gets a "HECK NO" from me. One of the inherent properties of using this preservative is that is really does smell bad, which sometimes can lead product makers to dilute it too much (where it loses it's effectiveness) or to use additional masking agents to overpower the rancid smell of this ingredient in the product.

A lot of impetus for the use of sodium hydroxymethyglycinate is because of the false "cancer" scare related to paraben use (which is highly unwarranted). Even the cancer societies have dismissed these baseless assertions. Another tactic used to promote sodium hydroxymethylglycinate is claiming that it won't breakdown into formaldehyde like some paraben-containing preservatives. Actually, this isn't true either. Sodium Hydroxymethylglycinate can breakdown into formaldehyde and glycine (although these are quite negligible reactions). In later blogs, I will give a huge report on preservatives in skincare and everything you could possibly ever want to know!

My Recommendations: Read product labels carefully and see if this preservative is one of them. Personally I wouldn't recommend using it. I especially think people with sensitive skin should stay away from Sodium Hydroxymethylglycinate. In truth, there have been no studies on the long term effects of this preservative on this skin.

Summary:

• Sodium Hydroxymethylglycinate is NOT a natural preservative.
• It is actually a skin and eye irritant.
• Not recommended for sensitive skin.
• No long term studies on the effect on the skin.
• Not many research studies done on Sodium Hydroxymethylglycinate PERIOD.
• Click here for the MSDS (material safety data sheet) for Sodium Hydroxymethylglycinate.
  

So, next time you hear the overblown benefits of sodium hydroxymethylglycinate, you'll know the real truths! Again, I'll repeat what I've said in previous blogs. I am a HUGE fan of natural products and would love to see the day when we can discover natural (and truly effective) preservatives for skincare use! But that day is not today. I am a very big advocate of non-profits whose mission is to protect endangered plants, especially of possible medicinal use. (But more on that in a later blog)

One more piece of advice, all skincare products MUST contain preservatives, especially if they contain natural ingredients. Every once in a while I come across people touting their "preservative-free" products. THIS IS SERIOUSLY A HAZARD. Would you keep milk out for months at a time? No, cause we know it'll get bad, and so will our skincare products without the use of an effective preservative system. They only way we wouldn't need to use preservatives is if we made skincare products fresh ourselves (like every week!) and use them within a couple/few days. I'm sure hardly any of us have the time to do that consistently!

Well, enjoy your wonderful Friday and have a happy, healthy weekend!! I hope you enjoy reading my blogs and feel free to email me any question you may have! Let me know what you think of the blog and what you'll like to hear more or less of! And I hope I don't have to ever keep repeating "sodium hydroxymethylglycinate" as many times as I have in this blog!
XO