A few years ago there was a brand in some shops with literal pearls of something suspended in the gel.
Not very unlikely they were just plastic pearls.microbeads!
I thought they were using natural materials like ground coffee. Did some of them actually use plastic beads?
Yes, most used micro plastics for a long time, charcoal and coffee grounds are a fairly new advent in the last few years.
Some used pumice (I think Lava Soap or something along those lines) but it’s more harsh than the plastic microbeads OP is referring to.
I know St Ives uses crushed up walnut shells and apricot pits for theirs.
I have been using that stuff for years and I’m very satisfied!
Can confirm as I am allergic to walnuts.
LUSH uses almond hulls in their products, so they are fully compostable. If you want something with a scrub, check them out for sure.
I remember ads claiming it was cutting edge nanotechnology! And I thought oh cool, you mean like there are tiny robots running around in the shampoo? But no, it was microplastics.
As opposed to metaphorical microplastics?
Language evolves over time. Prescriptivism always fails.
Figurative micro plastics.
Micro surgeries
I thought Axe Snakepeel was so cool. I thought it had titanium beads. Turns out, the beads were plastic and titanium (dioxide) was normal soap stuff (though I think just to artificially make the soap opaque). It disappeared before I was aware
Titanium dioxide is often used as a white pigment
I work in the plastics industry. TiO2 is definitely our pigment of choice for white colorant
God knows how many KG of that I lifted in the few years I worked in plastics
Exfoliating plastics!
There’s still shampoo with silicone as an ingedient, so your hair feels silky smooth. Because it wraps every single hair in invisible micro plastic.
Most conditioner is silicone-based. For anyone curious, if your conditioner lists dimethicone or any other -cone in the ingredients list, that’s silicone.
I have to admit, I saw your comment and was like “no fucking way”.
So I looked it up and… Yes fucking way. That’s crazy!
My dentist recommended me a stupid toothpaste called “Pearls & Dents” which also contained literal plastic balls. Such a stupid and corrupt person. I believe Dentists are paid by Elmex in germany too.
They are. I went through pre-med for my postmortem science degree and am still close with my doctor/dentist friends from the program. They get kickbacks from companies if they successfully sell a brand. Sometimes the results are great, like Wakix (my Narcolepsy medication that actually helped), but other times, it’s a garbage product. If the medical professional has a fancy pamphlet or offers you coupons for the product, that means the company is paying them.
Do you have you pay for medication in Germany?
Hold up- when I read micro infiltrated blood, Intuit breast milk, glaciers etc, I pictured microscopic. You’re telling me plastic materials large enough to see and feel are what they’re referring to?
As I understand it, there’s a range of sizes that are problematic, from small to micro to nano and beyond.
The problem is the more plastic we make, and the smaller it starts, the easier it is for it to get worn down into smaller and smaller bits that become more problematic for us.
One of the problems with all the macro plastics in the ocean is that that as they get churned up and baked in the UV from the sun, smaller and smaller bits break off and become part of the… Everything.
Micro plastics are so prevalent that they can’t even do proper studies on how harmful it might be to us, because there are no control groups that have no plastics inside their bodies to compare against. Even babies in the womb have plastic in them. You have plastic in you right now, almost a 100% guarantee.
There’s probably more to it than that even, but that’s my understanding of it.
Ahhh… that whole, plastic seeps into your possessions thing… That might be the ocean, not the hot soup in your nalgene. Man… there is a lot of macro in the ocean to break down. I’ve been following environmental news and science for almost 35 years and I keep learning new and exciting shitty things for the first time. It only gets worse!
