Alba Botanica / Hain Celestial Customer Svc

[organicmama]

I emailed Alba Botanica (owned by Hain Celestial), just to be sure of low risk regarding any allergens in their sunscreens. I don't see any obvious dangers in the ingredients and it is labeled hypoallergenic, whatever that means.

Here is their response:

"Our plant-based formulations come from a variety of sources and combinations of derivatives and are not screened for traces of specific allergens. We cannot guarantee that

[organicmama]

To add - I did not ask about allergy testing at all, nor do I expect a company to typically do that. I simply asked if they included ingredients with gluten, dairy, soy, or egg.

[mbrookes]

Do you plan to eat the sunscreen? Why would it be a problem?

[organicmama]

From what I've read here, you should try to make sure your personal care products are free of your sensitive foods, especially if you don't have full relief of symptoms.

[ravenwoodglass]

Do you plan to eat the sunscreen? Why would it be a problem?

Anything that gets on your hands can end up in your mouth or contacting another mucous membrane which can cause the antibody reaction.

[kareng]

Do you plan to eat the sunscreen? Why would it be a problem?

A few people seem to have a reaction on their skin.

The main problem for most of us is that you do eat the lotions or shampoos/ conditioners. They are made to stick to skin & hair. You put them on with your fingers. You use your fingers for food. Because they are supposed to stick to skin, they can be hard to wash completely off of your hands. So, you can decide if that is an issue for you or not.

[Snugbuggin]

Do you plan to eat the sunscreen? Why would it be a problem?

Here is what I say to this heavy debate. If you use a product that has gluten in it, say sunscreen, it is no different that putting whole wheat bread in it's place. So taking that for instance, would you rub your whole body with a loaf of bread, your face, hands, etc. Think about when you sweat... you have bread all over you and you sweat and it gets in your nose, your mouth, and tear ducts.. all that leads to your digestive tract. You can wash sunscreen off all day long on your body, but it takes a LONG time before everything in that lotion is out of your skin cells... which means the gluten is still there too. you get a hand full of chips and put them into your mouth, BAM.. attack. As a matter of fact I am sick right now from this happening to me 4th of July. I used someone elses Sunscreen thinking that I would be careful since I am fair skinned and needed something. Well sweat got the better of me.

It makes me upset with all this debate going on. To me it never was the absorbed through the skin that was the issue, it was the cross contimination possibility. You would not want to eat food that was served on a plate that had bread rubbed all over it. So why would you want to put hands in your mouth with essentially the same thing.

This is not saying that people can't get sick through skin contact, I believe that to be true also. Some people have different symptoms. I just think that we need to be totally Gluten Free to protect ourselves.