Preservatives are by nature poisonous, and have more to do with profit, supply chains and convenience and little to contribute to the health of the hair, the skin or the environment. 66% of our products contain no preservatives. To achieve this we make our product fresh, most within 24hrs, using fresh ingredients and minimal amounts of water. However where necessary the liquid hair and skin care contain small amounts of methyl and propylparaben at less than half the maximum permitted level. The parabens we use are still the safest and mildest we can find and this guarantees the quality and safety of our products we want our customers to enjoy. For example a bar of soap by it’s nature doesn’t enable microorganisms to grow on it. A liquid soap however is a mixture of surfactant, and water which is a perfect medium in which germs grow. It has to be preserved and much of a cosmetic chemist art is choosing the cocktail of poisons to stop things getting out of hand. Every time you pump air into the product you introduce aerial microorganisms. This challenges the organism which kills them leaving their bodies in the product. If the product is heavily challenged the preservative system will fail. To put it simply a soap can’t go off but a liquid soap can. In the case of a product that you put your hands in like a moisturiser your fingers potentially contaminate the products every time. Legally, cosmetics are supposed to last for 36 months, if they don’t they have to have a label telling you their shelf life. In the 34% of the products we do preserve, in order to keep preservatives to the minimum we give them a 14 month shelf life. This stops you hanging on to a product that could potentially be full of dead microorganisms.