On June 9, 2013, our friends at Women’s Voices for the Earth (WVE) released a spoof SC Johnson commercial and website, at the same time delivering over 50,000 signatures to the company asking them to list fragrance ingredients in their products.
This is the same group that just a couple months ago, helped convince Proctor & Gamble to significantly reduce the levels of 1,4-dioxane in its laundry products. Will you help us work to make another change in the industry?
Secret Scents Campaign
In April of 2013, WVE launched a new campaign called “Secret Scents,” encouraging companies to disclose the sometimes potentially toxic fragrance ingredients they’re using in our personal care and home care products. Right now, these chemicals are protected as “trade secret,” which means we have no idea what chemicals we’re putting on our skin, spraying in our homes, or using to rub down our kitchen tables.
That can be dangerous, because many fragrance ingredients are linked to allergic reactions, including itching, rashes, and eczema. Worse, some are connected to more serious health problems.
That’s why WVE has gotten involved, and I invite all Cinco Vidas readers to let companies like SC Johnson know that we don’t appreciate being kept in the dark.
Gathering Together to Make a Change
On July 9, 2013, advocacy group SumOfUs.org and WVE presented cleaning product manufacturing giant SC Johnson & Son with more than 51,000 signatures from consumers demanding to know what ingredients make up the fragrances in the company’s scented products.
“SC Johnson publicly touts their commitment to honesty and transparency while keeping fragrance ingredients in products a secret,” said Cassidy Randall, Director of Outreach and Engagement at WVE, “and their customers find this double standard unacceptable. Consumers have a right to know what chemicals are in products like Glade, especially if those chemicals may harm their health.”
Potentially Toxic Ingredients
SC Johnson does, to their credit, list on their website the nearly 1,500 ingredients they use in their fragrances, but the list isn’t product-specific, which means we still don’t know which chemicals are in which products. Yet the company does list some of their fragrance chemicals-those known to trigger allergies-on product labels in the European Union, because the law requires them to. Since the U.S. makes no such requirement, SC Johnson doesn’t list the ingredients on U.S. labels.
“In the European Union, where disclosure rules are stricter,” said SomOfUs Campaign Manager Kaytee Riek, “Glade products already have labels about their ingredients, so we know that S.C. Johnson could easily be more transparent.”
Meanwhile, WVE lists some of the potentially harmful ingredients on the list:
- Synthetic musks: persistent (they don’t break down in the environment), bioaccumulative (they build up in our bodies), potential hormone disruptors, may break down the body’s defenses against other toxic exposures, and are showing up in our blood and breast milk.
- All 26 of the fragrance allergens currently disclosed on SCJ product labels in the European Union (EU). SCJ doesn’t disclose these allergens on product labels in the U.S. because law does not require them to.
- Several additional allergens, which have been deemed of concern in the EU. (While WVE does not believe that allergens need to be removed from products, because not everyone is sensitive to them, allergens should be clearly labeled so that those people who are sensitive can avoid them.)
- Several chemicals of concern identified by an EU panel as having no publicly available human safety data.
- Terpenes, which can react with ground level ozone in the air to form cancer-causing formaldehyde.
- Petroleum, the same compound in gasoline.
How You Can Help
If you’d like to help encourage SC Johnson to make a change, I invite you to visit WVE’s website and donate to their efforts. You may also decide not to buy air fresheners and other products with synthetic fragrances, and instead, purchase your personal care and home care products only from companies who use safer, natural ingredients like essential oils to scent their products.
What do you think of WVE’s campaign? Are you fed up with being kept in the dark? Please let us know your thoughts.
