Washing Your Dog with Oil Wood Soap?
One of our favorite 4-Legger customers, Otis, and his owner, contacted us to say his veterinarian said you could wash your dog in a popular pure vegetable wood oil soap. Our ears went on alert and we decided to investigate it!
The bottle claims 98% naturally derived ingredients. True. The vast majority of the ingredients is ... Water!
| Water | ||
| Sodium tallate | Cleaning agent | The salt of tall oil acid - a byproduct from the pulping of pine trees. It is generally recognized as safe. |
| Artificial Fragrance | Fragrance | If you see the word “fragrance" on the ingredient label or it gives off a strong scent in the absence of essential oils, it is very likely that pthalates are present in your shampoo. Phthalates are used to bond the fragrance to the other ingredients. They are also known as "hormone disruptors" meaning they can wreak havoc on your dog's endocrine system. The fragrance itself is likely made of hundreds of separate ingredients many of which have may be linked to cancer as well as reproductive and developmental toxicity. |
| Trisodium MGDA | Product stability | May be slightly irritating to sensitive skin but is though to be safe. |
| Lauramidopropyldiamethylamine oxide | Cleaning agent | When used on wood, it is a cleaning agent. In shampoo it would be considered a synthetic foam booster and surfactant (cleaning agent). It is generally thought to be safe and only slightly irritating to sensitive skin. |
Next, we checked the pH which came back at @ 8. So, still reasonable to use on your dog.
The verdict has been rendered. Without the artificial fragrance it may pass as a completely reasonably good dog shampoo if you were comfortable using synthetic ingredients on your dog.
In fact, wood oil soap is likely safer than a lot of dog grooming products on the market today. Of course, 4-Legger certified organic dog shampoo has no artificial fragrance or synthetic ingredients!
Otis assured us that he was sticking with 4-Legger! Thanks, Otis and thank your Dad for bringing us this fun blog post! We enjoyed it.
