You will have noticed that many products – such as detergents, body cleansers and cosmetics, even for babies’ care – contain sodium hydroxymethylglycinate; which is its function and why Bensos did choose not to use it?
It acts as a preservative, mainly antifungal. It is part of “formaldehyde precursors” category, as it modifies over time, releasing in products small quantities of formaldehyde, a known effective preservative. Unfortunately, formaldehyde is not only a sensitizing agent: its cancerogenicity, reproductive toxicity and genotoxicity are demonstrated (IARC, 2008).
As other strong preservatives, sodium hydroxymethylglycinate is used mainly by large manifacturers, whose production lines are very complex, rich in pipes and connections difficult to clean; cleaning interventions must be made inside the plants, with automatic systems. With regard to a little manufacturer, who works with little simple plants, in general a large plant shows greater probabilities to develop microorganisms colonies, so the need to prevent them by adding strong preservatives to the products is higher.
A little manufacturer can manage cleaning procedures more closely, so it can achieve a good products conservation even using milder and less toxic preservatives.
Bensos do use neither sodium hydroxymethylglycinate, nor other formaldehyde precursors, definitely nor formaldehyde in its products, whether detergents, body cleansers or cosmetics.
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