[stiff]

Minimalism or not, I would like to expand on one of the points - most cosmetics in wide circulation today are really terrible. If you look up their ingredients and look at chemical properties of those, it's all about optimizing the technological process to be as cheap as possible and producing short-term pleasant sensations for the customer, health considerations being completely absent.

Basically it's an example of a problem with market economy that probably occurs in other fields too sometimes - customers themselves do not always notice long term effects of using bad chemicals on their skin and are apt to buy products that smell nice, lather or distribute easily and so on, so almost all producers end up producing products that give a good first impression at the cost of being harmful in the long term. For example, almost every shampoo or fluid soap contains some form of SLS, because it's cheap and because it makes for a nice emulsion, despite research showing it is apt to cause skin irritation. Also popular are mineral oils, which is quite an euphemism for a byproduct of petroleum distillation. If you consider this just the next quack fad, talk to someone who uses some of those chemicals in a lab.

[LaGrange]

Actually, I recently tried to verify the claims about horrible consequences of SLS from anything other than semi-conspiracy-theory sites. I might have missed something, but what I've found was boiled down to it being pretty much a non-issue. What it did turn out, though, is that we use too high doses of soaps and shampoos in general, and they are actually intended to be used in minuscule amounts.

Also, "byproduct of petroleum distillation!" is the new "unnatural!" is the new "if got intended X to Y, he would Z!".

[stiff]

What it did turn out, though, is that we use too high doses of soaps and shampoos in general, and they are actually intended to be used in minuscule amounts

Well, isn't this a confirmation of what I have said? Like producers of cosmetics encourage us on a regular basis to use up as little of their products as possible? I like what Chomsky said on a somewhat similar topic:

If I'm analyzing capitalism and I point out that General Motors tries to maximize profit, that's not a conspiracy theory. That's analysis.

It's not a conspiracy theory that companies try to maximize profit, in fact that's one of the basic assumptions of free market economy. I don't even ascribe any particularly cynical viewpoints to any of the individual people involved, but in any large company responsibility becomes so diluted it's easy for things that are quite bad for society in general to just happen without anyone being left with much remorse. I think it's quite rational to expect that markets that are not regulated to some extent might degrade in those nasty ways.

[LaGrange]

Not for any kind of generous reasons, but probably to avoid problems with consumer organizations, but I recall most packaging mentioning "small amount". Might be an European thing, though.

[NhanH]

I think many people actually believe (and specifically use for the reason) that using cosmetics product would be useful for them in the long run: reduce wrinkle, aging etc. As I have no knowledge on this, can anyone weight in?