Pantene Shampoo: Negative Impact on Health

Pantene Shampoo: Negative Impact on Health
On any given day, most people around the world use one or more personal hygiene or beauty products for a range of purposes. These products are selected from a variety of company brands, and each promises better results than the others. In this study, the objective was to select one such product and explore its ecological, social, and economic impact. Pantene shampoo was selected for this study, and falls under the category of beauty products. According to D’Souza and Rathi, shampoos are used to clean the scalp of dirt, sweat, and other previously applied hair products. They are an important example of a beauty product because they help maintain an individual’s overall hair quality.
Pantene shampoo is part of the Proctor and Gamble Company’s line of products. Pantene, however, was originally founded in Switzerland in 1945 by Hoffman-LaRoche (Mahalli). Proctor and Gamble (P&G) acquired Pantene in 1985, and its products have since gained significant success as they are now sold in over 55 countries. In 1994, Pantene surpassed $1 billion in revenue, and it has been recognized as the world’s leading manufacturer of hair care products (Mahalli). There are three basic types of Pantene shampoo, which include clarifying, anti-breakage, and dry shampoos.
Raw Materials
There are a number of raw materials used in making Pantene shampoo. These ingredients affect people differently, which is why users should read the packaging to understand how they may be impacted by the products. Pantene shampoo contains panthenyl ethyl ether, cocamide MEA, xylenesulfonate, tetrasodium EDTA, sodium benzoate, trihydroxystearin, and ethylene glycol distearate (Pantene; Willet). Each of these listed ingredients has a unique function such as strengthening the hair, increasing the product’s shelf life, improving thickness, and maintaining the scent of the shampoo. The products also contain sodium nitrate and citric acid that help in maintaining the PH balance and the fragrance.
Manufacture and Packaging
Companies, in general, are becoming more conscious of how they manufacture and package their products because of the growing calls for environmental conservation. We can divide the manufacturing process into three main parts: Compounding, Quality Control, and Filling. The first step would be to develop the shampoo formula and test it to ensure that the product changes minimally over time. This type of testing is called Stability Testing, and it ensures that the color, thickness, and odor stays the same. It also points out any possible changes like microbial changes or anything related to performance. The idea is that the product in the lab should be the same as the product on shelves in any CVS, Walgreens, and other retail stores. During the manufacturing process, huge batches of shampoo are produced, and then filled into many individual bottles. As far as the three main steps are concerned, compounding is when workers known as “compounders” produce large batches of shampoo in a designated manufacturing area. All raw materials are delivered to the compounding area through forklift trucks, poured into the batch tank and thoroughly mixed (How products are made). Depending on the formula of the shampoo, these batches can be heated or cooled to help to mix the ingredients and accelerate the process. Everything is done by pressing buttons, and the batches can take from 1 hour to 4 hours, depending on the size. After all the ingredients are added to the batch, there is a quality control test (QC) to ensure that the product “meets” the ingredients labeled in the back of the shampoo. In these tests, they are able to see ph determination, viscosity checks, and appearance. If anything is out of the standard, they have ways to manipulate the solution and adjust it. After the batch is approved within the QC, it goes to a holding tank until the filling machines are available. Lastly, in the filling process, it starts with the manipulation of the bottles to ensure they are in the appropriate form and standing upright. After that, the filling carousel starts to fill these bottles with the batches of shampoo. The next step is the labeling machines, and they can either be adhesives or heat pressed. The last step of the manufacturing process is the boxing area, where these individual bottles are put into boxes – several at a time. These machines can do up to 200 bottles a minute, and they stay in pallets until trucks pick them up and take them to large distributors.
Going back to the discussion of environmental damage in packaging, P&G introduced the “beach bottle” packaging approach for shampoo (Mohan “P&G Unveils First Recyclable Shampoo Bottle”). These containers are recyclable, and they are made from collected beach plastic. The company works with TerraCycle, a compan