When we think about products related to our health, we may think of our vitamins, supplements, ingredients in our pantry, maybe even some of our body care products. We automatically turn to the products we put in and on our bodies, but what about the products we use around our bodies?
This article is not meant to scare you or make you rethink your entire cupboard of cleaning products. It’s simply to help you feel more informed about the ingredients and compounds you may be breathing in daily, and give you some suggestions on what to look for the next time you’re in the household cleaners aisle.
If you personally don’t care all that much about what’s in your household cleaners, that is totally up to you - there are a million other tasks and priorities you may need to focus on. However, if you have other people living with you, such as children or even pets, this may be something to consider. Both children and pets have a higher likelihood of reaching, licking, or touching a product than you.
And a reminder: chemical-free isn’t always a bad thing. Everything is made of chemicals, including water, vinegar, and even the human body. It’s about what each one means and whether it’s adding value to the product you’re using, or is unneccessary.
One of the easiest traps in the "clean living" space is assuming that an ingredient with a complicated name must be dangerous, but that's not how toxicology works.
An ingredient's potential hazard depends on things like its chemical properties, concentration, route of exposure and how much we're actually exposed to. A substance can have a hazard associated with it without creating a significant risk at typical household exposure levels.
Knowing what the ingredients are doing and if the formulation used has evidence of being a safer choice can help lessen your anxieties around these complicated names.
There isn't one universal list of ingredients that everyone needs to avoid. However, there are certain categories worth understanding, particularly if you're trying to minimize unnecessary exposure in your home.
"Fragrance" is one of the first things you might notice on a cleaning-product label. The word can represent a mixture of ingredients used to create a particular scent. If fragrance isn't contributing to the product's cleaning ability, some people choose fragrance-free products as a simple way to reduce unnecessary exposure. It doesn’t mean you need to throw away all your products that may have a nice scent to them, but it’s about asking if your bathroom cleaner really does need to smell like coconut and pineapples.
The EPA's Safer Choice program even has a separate designation for products that are fragrance-free, while fragranced products that carry the Safer Choice label still have to meet EPA's fragrance criteria.
Preservatives serve an important purpose: they help prevent bacteria, yeast and mold from growing in products that contain water.
Some preservatives, however, are known to be more concerning for skin sensitization than others. Methylisothiazolinone (MI) and methylchloroisothiazolinone (MCI), for example, are preservatives that have been associated with allergic contact dermatitis.
A preservative can have a legitimate function in a formulation, and its presence doesn't automatically mean the finished product is unsafe. What matters is the ingredient, concentration, formulation and exposure.