Safe Home Cleaning Products Debunked

This article deals with the issue of misleading marketing within the domestic cleaning products industry. It focuses on a number of ways in which we are misled about mass produced cleaning products, leading us to believe that many commercially produced home cleaning products are safer and more environmentally friendly than they actually are.

There are a number of ways in which product messaging doesn’t align with the reality of product outcomes. This article covers the main ways in which cleaning product information is misleading, keeping the buying public in the dark about the adverse effects of many household cleaners. It covers the following:

• Greenwashing of conventional cleaning products – cleaning agents that are touted as green, but aren’t as environmentally friendly, (or people or pet friendly), as they are purported to be.
• How ingredients that are presented as “natural” in household cleaning products are often not what we would consider natural, at all.
• How corporations are aware of the need to offer safe household cleaning supplies, but why they are often failing to do so.
• Why corporations are telling us that they are delivering what we want, (green, effective and safe cleaning products), whilst often doing the opposite.

Environmentally Friendly Home Cleaning Products

Sadly, there is a lot of ‘greenwashing’ within the highly lucrative household cleaning products industry. This is because manufacturers know there’s a huge appetite, among the buying public, for products that are human, pet and environment friendly.

However, it is really costly to produce safe, natural alternatives to the chemically hazardous products that line entire aisles in supermarkets and chemists. Plus, quite a few natural ingredients, like bicarbonate of soda, with its almost magical cleaning properties and environment-friendly credentials, simply refuse to be pre-blended. This prevents manufacturers from producing exclusive branded products that they can market as a complete and finished ‘no fuss’ item.

Manufacturers need to specifically brand and register each of their products, as this is the only way of insuring they have the exclusive rights to the formula. And, of course, they absolutely need the exclusive rights to a product if they are going to maximise their profits, (by excluding all others from producing another version of the same product).

Sadly, the buying public is generally kept far too busy trying to keep a roof over their heads to find the time to ask this important question…

Is this really in my interest?

The reality, of course, is that this situation really isn’t in the interest of the buying public. It is only in the interest of the manufacturer.

This is because it is employing a tactic that is controlling and coercive and necessarily prevents innovation. Plus, because it is a device that is practiced by those who wish to control and coerce, it generates exclusive profits that make these kinds of entities more and more powerful… thereby entrenching us in systems that are completely at odds with serving our interests.

This is especially true where personal care and home cleaning products are concerned. But, in all honesty, it’s endemic in most industries. However, the health consequences are never so serious as they are when it comes to products we come into direct contact with on a daily basis.

The Illusion Of Choice

Manufacturers go to great lengths to disguise the level of control they have managed to secure within certain sectors of industry.

How many manufacturers do you think make all the different brands of home cleaning products that can be bought in UK supermarkets?

The answer will likely really shock you…

You’ll find many different brands, but a quick look at the small print on the label, and you will learn that the product you’re holding is produced by one of a small handful of huge corporations that monopolise the global cleaning and detergent industry.

Producers Of Cleaning Product

The small number of major multinational corporations producing our cleaning and laundry products include:

• Unilever
• Reckitt Benckiser
• Procter & Gamble (P&G)
• SC Johnson

These three corporations completely dominate the UK supermarket cleaning product aisles. They have even bought out smaller eco-friendly businesses, often significantly changing the ingredients used, making the eco-branded products a whole lot less “eco-friendly” than before.

Unilever

Unilever is a British & Dutch owned multinational chemical company. It owns the following home cleaning brands, but is not limited to this sector. For example, it also owns Dermalogica, the professional personal care and cosmetic brand:

• Cif (Jif): A major brand for surface cleaning products, including creams, sprays, and floor cleaners.
• Comfort: A brand primarily for fabric conditioners and enhancers.
• Domestos: Known for toilet and bathroom cleaning products, especially thick bleach and cleaning sprays.
• Lifebuoy: While also a personal care (soap/hand wash) brand, it has professional cleaning and hygiene products in some markets.
• Neutral: A brand offering sensitive cleaning products, including laundry and dishwashing items, in certain markets.
• Persil (Omo / Skip / Surf Excel / Breeze / Rinso / Ala): Unilever’s main “Dirt Is Good” range for laundry detergent, marketed under different names depending on the region.
• Sun: A brand for dishwashing and laundry products in specific regions.
• Sunlight: Primarily a dishwashing liquid brand, also available in some regions as a laundry bar or powder.
• Surf: Another major laundry detergent brand with various fragrance options.
• Vim: A brand for scouring powders, cream cleaners, and professional cleaning solutions.

***Unilever acquired Dermalogica in 2015, adding the professional skincare brand to its ‘Unilever Prestige portfolio’, a division focused on premium beauty and personal care brands.

Dermalogica operates as a subsidiary, complementing other brands like Kate Somerville and Murad.

It remains a market leader in professional skincare, known for its focus on skin health and therapist education.

However, appearances and messaging can sadly be deceptive. I will delve into the harms of personal care products in a follow-up article.

It’s important to never forget that Unilever is a chemical company.

Unilever operates key manufacturing and R&D sites in the UK, notably the major ice cream factory in Gloucester, producing Wall’s, Magnum, and Viennetta, and the Port Sunlight site, on the Wirral, that produces household and personal care goods, (Persil, TRESemmé, etc.) and is also responsible for developing new synthetic fragrances. They also have an important Foods R&D hub at Colworth.

SC Johnson

SC Johnson is one of the American multinational corporations that completely dominate the domestic cleaning market. Like their competitors, they are responsible for a lot of competing brands, that most people think are owned by competing companies. But, of course, they are not. Instead, they are all nestled under one umbrella.

Rather than listing all of the SC Johnson products, I instead want to simply draw attention to one of their key products: Ecover.

That’s right. The eco brand that we all think is a home-grown environmental success story is actually owned by the American multinational consumer goods corporation SC Johnson that is responsible for brands like Glade and Windex, which are inherently deeply toxic.

SC Johnson acquired the plant-based cleaning brand in 2018. Unsurprisingly, the acquisition led to criticism and boycotts from ethical consumers due to SC Johnson’s practices, including links to animal testing, as well as broader sustainability concerns.

Procter & Gamble

Procter & Gamble is another US giant. The Procter & Gamble domestic cleaning products portfolio is vast. It includes a wide range of well-known brands across laundry, dishwashing, and general household cleaning products and detergents.

I will list the main products here, just so you can soak up the breathtaking breadth of competing products that are all owned by a single entity… so you can truly realise just how rigged everything is. Or, put another way, just how willing the commercial world is about hoodwinking us into believing anything they darn well want us to!

Laundry & Fabric Care

• Ariel: A widely available laundry detergent brand, offered in liquids, powders, and PODS capsules.
• Daz: Another common laundry detergent brand in the UK.
• Fairy: Non-Bio Laundry: A popular non-biological laundry range designed for sensitive skin.
• Bold: Offers 2-in-1 laundry detergent products.
• Bounce: Produces fabric softener sheets for dryers.
• Cheer: A laundry detergent brand.
• Downy: Known for fabric protectors and softeners.
• Dreft: Offers baby-specific laundry detergents and products.
• Era: A laundry detergent brand.
• Gain (laundry): A major brand covering laundry detergents, scent boosters, fabric softeners, and dryer sheets.
• Lenor: Focuses on fabric conditioners and in-wash scent boosters (like Lenor Unstoppables).
• Tide: One of P&G’s largest brands, offering various laundry detergents and products.

Dishwashing

• Dish Care: The primary P&G brand for washing-up liquid and dishwasher tablets in the UK.
• Cascade: Specialises in dishwasher detergents.
• Dawn: A well-known brand for dishwashing liquid.
• Fairy (dish care): A popular washing-up liquid and dishwasher detergent brand
• Gain (dish care): Also offers a dishwashing liquid product.
• Ivory: Provides dishwashing liquid (among other products).
• Joy: Primarily a dishwashing liquid brand.
• Salvo: Another dishwashing liquid brand.

Household Surface Care & Odour Control

• 9 Elements: A line of cleaning products.
• Ace: Primarily a stain remover liquid.
• Ambi Pur: A brand focused on air fresheners and odour eliminators.
• Febreze: Specializes in odour control and air freshener products.
• Flash: Offers various general-purpose surface cleaners.
• Microban 24: A home cleaning brand providing sanitizing and disinfecting products.
• Mr. Clean: Known for all-purpose household cleaners.
• Swiffer: Offers multi-surface dusters and cleaners.
• Viakal: A brand for kitchen and bathroom surface care, specifically anti-limescale products.
• Zevo: Focuses on insect repellents and bug control. Paper Products (Family Care)

While not “cleaning products” in the chemical sense, P&G’s Family Care brands are integral to domestic cleaning and hygiene…

Family Care & Home Hygiene

• Bounty: Paper towels.
• Charmin: Bathroom tissue and moist towelettes.
• Puffs: Tissues.

Personal Care & First Aid

• Gillette: The well-known brand for razors and other male grooming products.
• Venus: The female counterpart to Gillette, offering razors and shaving gels.
• Oral-B: A leading brand for toothbrushes and dental floss.
• Pampers: One of P&G’s largest brands, producing disposable nappies and wipes.
• Always: A major brand for menstrual hygiene products.
• Head & Shoulders: A popular anti-dandruff shampoo brand.
• Pantene: A well-known haircare brand.
• Vicks: Provides a range of over-the-counter cough, cold, and flu relief products.

Greenwashing Is Cheaper Than Doing Things Right

Large corporations acquire smaller up-and-coming “green” brands like Ecover to improve their green credentials. But, that’s only one insidious way in which the buying public is being greenwashed.

Other ways include engaging in misleading marketing tactics that create a false impression of environmental responsibility.

Companies know that we are so concerned about the environment that we are willing to pay a premium for products that will help protect it. So, it makes good commercial sense to exploit growing consumer concern for the environment to boost their image and sales, using a range of subtle and overt deceptions that often lack scientific data or third-party verification…

Tragically, this essentially means we are paying more for products that are being passed off as safe and environmentally friendly… when they are anything but!

Common Ways The Public Is Being Greenwashed

Vague Language & Buzzwords: Intentionally ambiguous terms like “eco-friendly,” “natural,” “sustainable,” “green,” or “clean” are bandied about without substantiation or explanation. Add to this the way the terms are presented as ‘key selling points’, thereby deceptively persuading consumers to interpret these kinds of claims as being very positive, perhaps even righteous and virtuous, regardless of whether the actual environmental benefit is real or non-existent.

Product Packaging: Labels and packaging prominently feature misleading environmental statements and slogans, often augmenting impressions with nature-based imagery and iconography like; leaves, trees, and pristine landscapes. Green and earthy colours are also often used for branding purposes to imply an environmental connection, regardless of the actual impact of the product. Some companies even take this one step further by employing the use of official-looking, but entirely bogus, eco-labels, a trend, which sadly, is growing increasingly common.

Hidden Trade-offs: Brands often highlight relatively insignificant, but genuine eco benefits, whilst completely ignoring the fact that the main elements of the product and packaging will have a potentially devastating impact on the environment. Significant environmental harms may be associated with production methods, product usage, or packaging disposal, etc.

Irrelevant Claims: Businesses make claims that are technically true but irrelevant to environmental impact, such as advertising a product as “CFC-free” when CFCs are already banned by law.

Carbon Offsetting Without Emission Reduction: Some companies promote “carbon-neutral” products based on purchasing carbon offsets rather than making significant, immediate reductions in their own greenhouse gas emissions. Critics argue this allows companies to continue “business as usual” while creating a false sense of progress.

Focus on a Single Green Product in an Otherwise Unsustainable Line: A company known for environmentally damaging practices might launch one “green” product line or initiative to project an image of responsibility, while the majority of their operations remain unchanged.

Why Is Greenwashing So Widespread?

Sadly, big corporations often don’t have the desire or expertise to make genuine efforts to become more sustainable.

Besides, it is much cheaper to tell people what they want to hear instead of giving them what they really want!

Changing manufacturing processes is inordinately expensive. Just imagine the cost of refitting a factory!

Then you have to retrain the workforce, which again, is immensely expensive. And, this is all before you factor in the cost of designing and manufacturing new packaging and labels, and then paying large numbers of people to produce the consistent messaging needed to re-educate the public about your ‘new and improved’ products.

And, you have to pay the marketing channels through which your messaging is delivered… whether that be radio and TV ads, or costly, time-consuming social media campaigns.

When all is said and done, it’s just not economically feasible to retro-fit old manufacturing operations to allow them to churn out environmentally-friendly products. It would be virtually impossible to modernise manufacturing processes, that were created before the green revolution was launched, to sufficiently meet today’s environmental needs.

And, whilst I would never advocate for a more lenient approach towards these old school manufacturers, I would certainly promote a very stern attitude toward new producers of bogus eco cleaning products that claim to be people, pet and planet friendly.

There is just no excuse, whatsoever, for this!

Sadly there are plenty examples of it, but I am going to home in on one… Purdy and Figg…

Why?

It’s partly because I am tired of people proudly announcing to me that they are using Purdy and Figg products expecting me to congratulate them for it. But, it’s also partly because I find their marketing so abjectly cynical…

Purdy and Figg is fronted by two retirees, an NHS nurse and a horticulturalist… So, it would seem… two entirely benign and virtuous individuals… Who wouldn’t believe them?

Well… I, for one, would not… But, I’ll tell you, it’s a very lonely position…

But, it really shouldn’t be…

Learn more here:

Are Purdy and Figg Products As Natural As You Think?