Can I Absorb Fluoride Through My Skin?
July 25, 2012, by Debra Lynn Dadd
Question from Jeff
I am trying to find information about skin absorption of fluoride in bath water and laundry cloth contacting with skin. I got conflicting infomation. Now we are drinking and cooking with spring water to reduce the fluoride exposure. But we also need to take a shower and do the lawndry for the cloth using fluoride city water. We can not find a perfect whole house water filtration system since both alumnum and bone char are not perfect. We want to avoid a whole house water filtration system if we can convince that fluoride will be entering into human body by skin.
Debra's Answer
About eight years ago, I did a lot of research on fluoride because they were about to add it to our local water supplies.
Here are some things I can tell you from that research.
The form of “fluoride” in drinking water today is not naturally occurring sodium or calcium fluoride, but fluorosilicic acid, a liquid that is a by-product of fertilizer manufacturing. Fluorosilicic acid itself is corrosive and highly toxic. It’s Material Safety Data Sheet warns “do not breathe vapor…do not get in eyes [or] on skin”.
And fluoride itself can be absorbed through the skin. There are many references. Just google "skin absorption of fluoride."
These are archives of Q&A asked by readers and answered by Debra Lynn Dadd (from 2005-2019) or Lisa Powers (from 2019-2020). Answers have been edited and updated as of December, 2020.