Multisyllabic Mumbo-Jumbo

I have always loved words. At one point in my life, words were my only close friends. I enjoyed taking a word and rearranging the letters to see how many other words I could make. I could only use the words given and only the numbers of the letters. If there was only one E in the words, I couldn’t make a word using more than one E. Same with the consonants. I couldn’t spell ‘yellow’ if there was only one L. Riding the school bus every day, I would see various signs and make words from the letters on the sign.

I don’t know when I started reading labels on food and other products just to see the weird ingredients. Food was pretty easy with only a few added things in the ingredients that needed explanation. Lotions and make-up had some very interesting words. I will list some things with ingredients I found interesting. When you actually look them up, they make sense sometimes.

Pickles:

Calcium chloride – anti-caking agent, stabilizer, thickening. I knew calcium meant milk, but the other thing confused me.

Sodium benzoate – a preservative. I knew sodium had to do with salt, so that made sense. Polysorbate 80 – a surfactant (?) and emulsifier (?) that helps other ingredients dissolve. Mainly used in cosmetic and beauty products! Why pickles?!?

Natural flavors – that doesn’t tell me anything! If it’s so natural, say what it is!!

Yellow 5 – these color things always amused me. Basically food coloring. I guess natural looking pickles aren’t appealing. Remember the big flap about Red Dye 5????

Equate body lotion: some of the ingredients sound scary but really aren’t.

Stearic acid, cetyl alcohol (thickening agents). Benzyl alcohol (preservative). Usually, something with the words ‘acid’ and ‘alcohol’ you don’t want to have on your skin.

Tapioca starch – I LOVE tapioca pudding! Here it’s a thickener. Don’t eat it!

Acrylates/C10-30 alkyl acrylate crosspolymer – what a mouthful. It’s an aromatic thickener.

Aloe barbadensis leaf juice powder – another mouthful. Skin conditioning. Why powder and not juice?

Fragrance – another one that doesn’t tell you anything. Fragrance from what?

Most of the other body and face products have a lot of the same ingredients. It’s always good to know some of the stuff you are putting on and in your body.