Slather

4 Feb 2010

I’ve been putting animal collagen on my head.

It’s something of a shock. Even if I wasn’t vegetarian, the idea that someone had grabbed the animal equivalent of Leslie Ash and squeezed its lips into a small vial in order for me to slather it on my scalp would be pretty horrifying. As it is it leaves me feeling rather sick.

In my defence I would say that I didn’t know about the whole animal lips thing until well into my treatment with Nizorel anti-dandruff shampoo. I’d glanced at the ingredients list, but if I’m honest I would just checking that it didn’t contain any nuclear waste or live insects. I wasn’t really expecting a shampoo to contain these things any more than I expected the collagen, but it pays to be careful.

So now I’m in something of a quandary. It could be worse. I could be in something of a quarry, with all the attendant risks of falling rocks or being swept up in a Tom Baker Dr Who story. But a quandary I am in. As a vegetarian, is it ethical to continue to use this shampoo, which is the only stuff I’ve ever used which magically clears up my occasional bouts of flakiness? Is there a veggie alternative? And if I pledge not to buy any more, how do I feel about continuing to pour its pink gooeyness on my head until the current bottle runs out?

The real sickener is that animal collagen, it transpires, is largely the same stuff as gelatine, a substance I harbour a massive grudge against since it lurks unseen is otherwise obviously vegetarian food ready to leap out in moments of stomach churning realisation. It’s not quite as disgusting to realise that you’ve poured it on your head, but only in the sense that having a nightmare about fucking George Bush in the mouth would be slightly less disgusting than being anally raped by the Pope.

The hunt for vegetarian shampoo starts here. For fuck’s sake.