Question from Marie
Hi Debra,
Hi. I looked on Q&A first, but didn’t see anything.
How do I tell a friend that her fragranced Dawn dish detergent is toxic? (It smelled up her kitchen and contaminated my clothes and hair.) Is there a list somewhere of its chemicals that I can email her?
Thank you very much
Debra’s Answer
You can find all the ingredients for all Dawn products here: www.pg.com/productsafety/search_results.php?searchtext=Dawn&category=ingredients&submit=Search
There are fifteen Dawn products, so choose the one that matches your friend’s.
Choose “ingredients” (pdf) under the product name and you will get something that looks like this: www.pg.com/productsafety/ingredients/household_care/dish_washing/Dawn/Ultra_Dawn_Original_Lemon_Dishwashing_Ingredient_Disclosure.pdf
After the Fragrance ingredient, there is another link that says “For more information, follow this link”. And it goes here: www.pgproductsafety.com/productsafety/ingredients/Perfume_and_Scents.pdf
Everyone take a look at this. They tell you all the chemicals that may be present in their fragrance. But no data on toxicity. This is the list of chemicals you are looking for.
I need to start a new project of looking up all these chemicals.
Women’s Voices for the Earth just released a report that magnificently answers this very question.
See Q&A: New Report on Fragrance Ingredient Safety and Regulation
Thanks!
Debra 🙂
Having done a lot of “informal” research on artificial fragrances since I developed MCS years ago, I learned that almost all artificial fragrances are petro-chemical based, with maybe 10% made from coal tar. So artificial fragrances don’t need toxic chemicals added, they consist of toxic chemicals. And I have an article somewhere in my computer that states that many formulations of artificial fragrances are manufacture with formaldehyde to make the smell “stick” longer, but of course it’s only part of the “process” so they can claim it is not an ingredient.
Thank you. , Pramada. I appreciate the info. Amazing, they don’t have to disclose formaldehyde (which is used abundantly in our world).
Thank you, Debra.
I think I should look up the main ingredients.
When clicking on the perfume link, hundreds of possible ingredients are listed, with this as part of the intro :
“Our perfumes are formulated with the greatest care and utmost attention to safety. Whenever a perfume is developed or enhanced, our safety scientists evaluate the detailed composition of the perfume to ensure that the product is safe to use. Perfumes are formulated taking into account our stringent internal safety standards for every ingredient, as well as the safety standards set by the International Fragrance Association (IFRA). We adhere to the IFRA Code of Practice and the IFRA Standards. For more information about IFRA go to http://www.ifraorg.org.”
Can this be true? I thought all perfumes (not including organic essential oils) contain toxic chemicals.
Thank you.
Marie
One of the things that is difficult in the field of toxics in consumer products is defining what is “safe” and what is “toxic.” There are many degrees of toxicity and different people react in different ways to various substances.
They have their own safety guidelines that may not be the same as your or mine. There is much evidence that synthetic scents can be harmful. So I wouldn’t take their word for the fact that all scents are safe. That just doesn’t agree with other things I’ve read.