WASHING UP LIQUID IS KINDER THAN MOST DOG SHAMPOOS

Animal Shampoos and cosmetics is a complicated market with products for every grooming issue, from colour enhancement, extra shine, deodorizing, pest control, the list goes on! Sadly, there are 1000s of extremely toxic and harmful ingredients, so dangerous they are banned in human cosmetics but are allowed in animal cosmetics due to the lack of regulations.

Trisha Heath, a professional dog groomer, has run her business for over 10 years. During that time, she has seen many skin issues caused by many different things. This led her to start studying canine dermatology. Trisha tells us,

“I began adjusting my grooming to suit different skin types and the result was a happy dog with a healthy coat. I then started to study the compositions of shampoo and cosmetics and it was really depressing. It’s generally kinder to wash your pet in washing-up liquid than many animal shampoos. So, I began making my own shampoos for myself and then my pets, soon enough I had customers asking me to make them for their animals, and this led me to launch a brand called ‘Berries and Leaves’ that has five off-the-shelf shampoo bars for the five main skin types. I also make other cosmetics for common skin issues. All 100% natural, kind, gentle ingredients that will work with your animal’s skin type to restore a natural skin balance resulting in healthy skin and hair. Also, it’s very important that the grey water from washing your animal won’t harm the environment when it goes down the drain.

I’m very proud to be the first dog groomer in the UK with the highest DAATA-ICDG qualification in dermatology and cosmetology. I’m so passionate about this and feel there’s not enough on the market aimed at naturally maintaining healthy skin and hair. I’d love to spread the word, with science leading the way, and encourage pet owners to double-check what they are putting on their animals and themselves.

My shampoo bars are made with the minimal amount of ingredients. I don’t add anything for colour or perfume. No harsh chemicals, no silicones to give a smoothing feel and suffocate the skin, no parabens, no PEG, no DEA, no foaming agents for luxurious lather (which makes the product harder to wash out) and most importantly, no harsh surfactants.

The ingredients chosen are all for that specific skin type, and they all clean, produce foam, smell nice and repair the skin just from the one mild surfactant, oils, butters, and leaves.

I grow many of the ingredients in my garden, including roses, lavender, chamomile, calendula, yarrow and nettles. If I run out, or the more challenging ones to grow like the amla plant, I buy in from a small UK supplier that have organic food-grade products.

Look at your own shampoo and see how many ingredients they contain. Most manufacturers want it to smell nice, feel luxurious, have a nice colour, last a very long time, clean effectively, rinse off effortlessly and produce lots of lather when using. All these things that ‘sell’ the shampoo mean more chemicals, more ingredients meaning more stabilizers, more preservatives, more chance of chemical change to the composition, more harm to the pet, owner and groomer, and more harm to the environment in production and grey water.

Many pet shampoos have toxic and carcinogenic chemicals as they are effective and cheap. Your dog may be washed with these products once every few weeks, which really isn’t great, however for dog groomers who are unaware will have their hands in these chemicals 5-10 times a day!”

Surfactants

This is the cleaning part of the shampoo. A surfactant has amphiphilic molecules. This molecule is in two halves. In basic terms, one half collects grease the other collects water. This type of molecule helps lift grease while spreading water, making it possible to clean. This means all surfactants (especially in a raw state) are irritants; otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to clean. There are thousands of different surfactants. Many of them are more lipophilic (attracts grease) and give spectacular results in one wash but also strip away the top layer of skin, damaging the stratum corneum and completely removing the lipid layer along with the grease leaving the skin prone to bacterial infection. It is probably easier to list the good surfactants rather than the bad.

We have one personalised package to give away, as recommended by professional groomers around the UK consisting of: A skin mask, skin recovery balm and shampoo bar

You can enter via the Vanity Fur Magazine social media pages or on our website: www.vanityfurmagazine.co.uk/berries