“If I’m going to be staying up until 3 A.M., it should be for world peace and not shampoo sales.”– Mona Sutphen

It takes a special type of man to look you in the eye, tell you that pillows cause neck pain, and then sell you pillow cases via his online store. A man with particular bravado: balls the size of Jupiter. A man who isn’t bothered by marketing a boat load of goods made from the same chemicals that he claims will cause you to shuffle early off this mortal coil.

Ladies and gentlemen: I give you David Avocado Wolfe.

In his article “8 Toxic Beauty Care Chemicals That Are Killing You!,”1 Wolfe links ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and its salts (e.g., disodium EDTA, trisodium EDTA) to health problems such as reproductive and kidney damage, fetal disability, and dermatitis.3,4,5,6,7 Ironically, he singles out shampoos and hair conditioners as common sources of EDTA.1

With this in mind, let’s go shopping at Avocado’s online emporium, the infamous Longevity Warehouse. (With all this foreshadowing, you probably know what’s coming.)

Here’s a nice bottle of Hairprint Amla Chelating Shampoo, and its ingredients:3

But soft! What chemical through yonder shampoo breaks? It is disodium EDTA, and David Wolfe is the son-of-a-snake-oil-saleman who’s selling it to you:

Yes indeed. Wolfe just told us that EDTA and its salts were responsible for a plethora of poisonous potions, and now he’s selling us the very same chemical. Let me refresh your memory:

“EDTA is used as a preservative in various skin care products, bath soaps, shampoos, conditioners, hair dyes and hair bleaches. With chronic use, EDTA has the potential to cause reproductive damage, fetal disability and kidney damage. Ironically (remember, it’s used in skin care products) EDTA can also cause contact dermatitis.”–David Wolfe1

But wait! If you act now, you can get two EDTA-laden products from David Wolfe for the price of… well… two:

Astute readers may have noticed that in the ingredients list, disodium EDTA is prominently listed next to a large banner from madesafe.org, proclaiming how rigorously these shampoos have been tested for safety. This may be the first thing Wolfe got right–there’s no evidence that EDTA is dangerous, but it’s a howling act of hypocrisy to claim a chemical will harm you while simultaneously listing it in a sales ad next to a bold-print banner that purports you’ve done extensive testing for toxic ingredients

To put the whip cream on this huge slice of irony pie, Hairprint, the manufacturer of the shampoos hawked by Avocado, proudly touts disodium EDTA as a featured ingredient in its products. David Wolfe: Google is your friend… learn how to use it:

“Disodium EDTA: This is a salt designed to act as a metal and mineral chelating agent. It has several uses as a medicine and is an approved food preservative. We use it here to remove the build up of minerals caused by hard water. Our Chelating Shampoo containing Disodium EDTA can perform miracles for hair conditions cause by hard water.” — Hairprint.com product information page 10

I’ve found no evidence to suggest EDTA is harmful, unless you happened to be run over by a truck carrying a ton of it to a processing facility. However, we’re not here to debate the safety of this chemical. No, we’re here to ask David Wolfe why he’s attempting to sell over five millions followers a product he falsely alleges will put them at risk of kidney failure or fetal abnormalities.

This is one of many Longevity Warehouse products that follow this pattern of hypocrisy, yet Wolfe’s followers seem to line up like lemmings who don’t read product labels, cash in their tiny paws, ready follow each other over the edge of the Cliff of Consumer Fraud. Sadly, some of Wolfe’s offerings, such as his dangerous and unproven cancer “cures,” could get someone killed. It’s a sad state of affairs, and in a world where facts no longer seem to matter, I see no end in sight.

Oh, about those pillow cases I mentioned in the opening… Get’em while they’re hot. And please: #DontCryWolfe

References

(1) Eight Toxic Body Care Chemicals That Are Killing You (DavidWolfe.com)

https://www.davidwolfe.com/8-toxic-beauty-care-chemicals/

Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

(2) Longevity Warehouse Hairprint Chelating Shampoo

https://www.longevitywarehouse.com/hairprint-chelating-shampoo#product_tabs_ingredients

Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

(3) Disodium EDTA, linked as information source by David Wolfe (see reference #2) [Warning: Not a scholarly link]

http://www.cosmeticsinfo.org/ingredient/disodium-edta

Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

(4) Trisodium EDTA, linked as information source by David Wolfe (see reference #2) [Warning: Not a scholarly link]

http://www.cosmeticsinfo.org/ingredient/disodium-edta

Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

(5) Pubchem EDTA (Compound ID 6049)

https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/edta

Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

(6) PubChem EDTA Disodium Salt (Compound ID 13020083)

https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/13020083

Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

(7) Pubchem Edetate Trisodium Salt (Compound ID 9008)

https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/9008

Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

(8) Hairprint Chelating Shampoo

https://www.longevitywarehouse.com/hairprint-chelating-shampoo

Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

(9) Hairprint Chelating Shampoo Ingredients

https://www.longevitywarehouse.com/hairprint-chelating-shampoo#product_tabs_ingredients

Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

(10) Hairprint.com Ingredients

https://www.myhairprint.com/pages/ingredients

Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

Image Credits

Article banner: Connor Gap Ireland (background) © 2017 Mark Aaron Alsip. David Wolfe screen snapshot elements, bathtub, shampoo, etc, used in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, parody, and increase public health knowledge.