No one online or on broadcast could miss them: Ads for scent beads, drier sheets and other laundry products that sell smell.
In one radio ad, the narrator follows someone on the street--the "love of my life" he calls the person--because of the fragrance coming from the product being marketed. Another ad features a vocalist singing, "Every now and then I get tired of the stinks that just will never come out," to the tune of the song "Total Eclipse of the Heart."
But it wasn't too long ago that "fragrance-free" was a selling point for personal care and cleaning products because they presumably lacked the chemical dangers of fragrance.
I recently interviewed Dr. Anna Reade, Senior Scientist and Director of PFAS at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) about what consumers should make of renewed "fragrance" advertising in cleaning product ads.
When it comes to fragrance, she told me, manufacturers tend to "not disclose" their chemical ingredients by claiming them as "confidential business information (CBI)." That lack of transparency could be a "red flag" to consumers especially because the family of chemicals called phthalates are often used as "fragrance carriers," she said. As endocrine disruptors, phthalates pose risks to the reproductive system, brain and other organs especially for pregnant women and babies according to NRDC.
Thankfully ingredient disclosure requirements for cleaning products have changed in California. NRDC and partners helped to pass the California Cleaning Products Right to Know Act in 2017, which requires all ingredients be disclosed, unless they are claimed to be CBI. However, an ingredient cannot be CBI if has been listed as a chemical of concern, such as those known to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm.
While there are "tens of thousands" of chemicals on the market, most of which have not been adequately tested for safety, Dr. Reade said the list is "pro-active," flagging many problematic chemicals, including the notorious class of chemicals known as PFAS (Per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances)--manmade agents that persist in the environment that neither our bodies or nature can "process." Consumers can also look for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s "Safer Choice" label on products which is given to cleaning products that only use ingredients from an approved list of safer chemicals .
Laundry pods and scent beads, usually made from dissolvable plastic, and dryer sheets, usually from polyester, add to our "plastic crisis" said Dr. Reade. Some products marketed as bio-degradable may not bio-degrade under normal conditions so consumers can be misled.
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