In 2008 I decided to make the move and replace Dawn, Ivory, and Sunlight for my liquid dish soap. At that time, I was still living in apartments and did not have a dishwasher, well, I was the dishwasher. After I changed brands to Nature Clean, I noticed that my hands were less dry after I would do the dishes. Slowly, I started to replace Comet, as my toilet bowl and bathroom cleaner, Pine Sol for my floor cleaner, and Windex for my window cleaner. When I changed bathroom soaps, I noticed that there was no longer any need for harsh abrasive cleaners in my bathtub. The bathroom soap scum was caused by the animal bi-products and chemicals in my shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. For years I had been using brands of shampoo like Head & Shoulders and Herbal Essences. As soon as I switched and my hair started to adjust to the new shampoo, I found the benefits far outweighed the slight increase in cost of my shampoos.
Frank T. Ross & Sons, the parent company who owns and manufactures Nature Clean products, was founded in Vancouver, 1928, to make products for the railroad industry1. In the 1950s the company moved to Ontario, where they began manufacturing of their most popular product, "Weldbond Glue", which is exported to the U.S., U.K., New Zealand, and Australia. In the early 1960s Frank T. Ross began to develop more natural soaps, free of dyes and fragrances because his wife suffered from allergic reactions to the harsh household cleaning products. In spite of the many years Nature Clean has been available on the market, their products have only caught international attention in the past few years. Since the release of Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth", informing people of the ingredients which go into their day-to-day products, Nature Clean product sales have, thankfully, risen.
The success of the company continued when Frank T. Ross teamed up with Corus Entertainment's Manager of Corus Kids and President of Nelvana, Doug Murphy, who realized that there was a lack of natural personal care products for children. Together, they formed Nature Clean's brand "Treehouse", it's namesake is taken from Corus' popular children's television network. From their partnership they produced "The Backyardigans" line of shampoos, bubble bath, and hand soap marketed to children 1. With the help of the Treehouse brand, Nature Clean broadened it's demographic thus taking huge steps in increasing awareness about the dangers of toxic chemicals. This attention has been worked hard for and is well deserved.
My personal experience with communicating to this company has been extremely positive. Whenever I have written to the folks at Nature Clean, I have always received a response within 24 hours and it has always been detailed, friendly, and informative. Their website is one of the easiest to navigate that I have visited and all the information you need is right there. From their commitment to 100% disclosure about ingredients, to their detailed explanations about their labeling, Nature Clean is a company truly doing it's best to stand behind their product and making sure the customer is both well informed and happy.
One of the great many benefits to their products is that they are dye free. Something that you might not think about when examining your household cleaning products. Food, drink, and soap - There are so many products which contain dyes to the point where people have formed allergies or intolerance's to either specific colours of dye, or even all artificial dyes. Nature Clean also makes a very large selection of soaps, both for personal and household use, which are fragrance free. When I say, "Fragrance Free", I mean that they really are free of any scent what-so-ever. Well, they smell like, soap if you can imagine soap without fragrance. One of the best selling points about their soaps is that they are biodegradable, safe for rivers and streams, and septic tanks. The fact that Nature Clean is better for the Environment as well as my own skin makes me feel really good when I purchase their products.
After visiting Terra 20's website this past week, I noticed that the preservatives they posted about, both Methylisothiazoline/Methylchloroisothiazolinone (which I spoke about in detail in my blog post, "Product Review: Ecos Magnolia and Lily Laundry Detergent Costco"), are found in Nature Clean's Liquid Laundry Detergent, Fabric Softener, and Dish Washing Liquid. Concerned about the use of these preservatives, I contacted Nature Clean to ask them what percentage they used in their products and why they chose these over others. This was their response to my inquiry, received the same day:
" Good day and thanks for using our Nature Clean products. Really do appreciate your feedback. It is important to us. Since we have changed the preservatives there has been a number of questions/concern, to better understand all the pros and cons, reason it changed etc is fully explained below and see the attached that we have posted on our website.
We
believe in complete disclosure and transparency and as such won’t hide
any info nor ingredients – we do indicate all on our packaging even
though it is not required by law to do so for household cleaners and it
gives our competitors an unfair advantage since they know exactly what
we do use – and they can make an educated assumption of the %, where as
they hide theirs’ under generic names like –anionic surfactant (can be
any of a 100), plant derived surfactant etc, generic term “preservative”
–there are 1000’s.
Concerning
the preservative. Preservatives are designed specifically for one
reason – to “kill” and prevent the growth/germination of moulds, fungus,
bacteria in the rich environment of a liquid that contains water. Water
is the prerequisite of life (as we know it) and as such any product
that contain water - is an ideal source or soup for these growth,
especially laundry liquids and dish liquids since they are used
frequently and although sterile can become contaminated by some other
impurities on opening- from cap due to storage, transportation, hands,
packaging, refilling, returning unused portion back to the bottle etc-
too many variables, once it is manufactured it is then exposed to
unsterile environment.
In
Canada and the US, for household cleaners – the preservatives legally
has to be chosen from an approved list – which is very short and they
all have their own negative connotation. Since we have established what
they are designed for. It is the responsibility of the company and also
the ethical sound thing for a company to make sure the product is
adequately preserved before releasing it on the market – microbial
growth can cause undue harm – for eg if a product is contaminated (it
cannot be seen with the naked eye), and you then use it to clean your
dish- rather than actually cleaning it – you will unintentionally be
doing more harm – resulting in food poisoning etc. Be very careful of
unpreserved “claims” or unlisted preservatives.
Having
said that, we have been using Sodium Hydroxymethyl Gycinate (SHG-from
glycine), our Research & Development lab is constantly reevaluating
all our ingredients and newer ingredients on the market for health
issues or any concern – should any arise – we promptly replace. New
datas have indicated some negative implication/association with SHG and
as such we do believe we need to replace it and after evaluating all the
available “legal” preservatives we have found that MIT/MCI is the most
effective and the health benefits provided will far outweigh the
negatives. Health Canada actually allowed it in personal care products :
- Methylisothiazolinone (2682-20-4)/ Methylchloroisothiazolinone (26172-55-4), in combination Permitted at concentrations equal to or less than 0.015% in rinse-off products and 0.0075% in leave-on products
That
is an excerpt from Health Canada. We have indeed evaluated all the pros
and cons of using this preservative, one of the good about it – it is
only required at a very miniscule fraction – way less than the previous
and way less than the “allowable” % in leave in Cosmetic Products that
are intended for the hair, body.
Some of the smaller companies do
claim to use “potassium sorbate”, etc in these products but chemically
they can only be effective at low pH of products like fruit juices,
cosmetics etc, which begs the question are these products (dish liquid
and laundry detergents from such companies) really preserved? Safe?
Highly unlikely.
We are diligently looking for alternatives as new the natural ingredients continue to evolve.
Regards."
What an answer!. There are two other preservatives that Nature Clean uses besides Methylisothiazoline/Methylchloroisothiazolinone, and they are Phenoxyethanol, which can be found in their shampoos, and Linear Alcohol Ethoxylate, which can be found in their Automated Dishwasher Pacs.
Phenoxyethanol and linear alcohol ethoxylate are both manufactured by a similar process - using Ethylene Oxide. The danger of using this carcinogen to manufacture these two compounds is the bi-product of the manufacturing process - 1, 4 Dioxane. This compound is not biodegradable, is a suspected carcinogen, and is so abundantly used, it has very easily leeched into our ground water supplies. Even though Nature Clean uses less preservatives than most other companies, if you're trying to avoid all preservatives, then you might want to consider an alternative to the products which may contain Phenoxyethanol.
Ethoxylates are a major class of ionic surfactants which are widely used in laundry detergents, some household and industrial cleaners, agriculture, paper, oil, cosmetics, textile and other processing industries. The good news is that alcohols containing ethylene oxides of C
6–C
18 length are considered to be rapidly biodegradable. According to a PDF from the Human and Environmental Risk Assessment on ingredients in European Cleaning Products: Alcohol Ethoxylates, page 144, it states that, "Many high quality studies investigating the acute toxicity of Alcohol Ethoxylates have shown that in terms of oral and dermal toxicity the use of these compounds are of low concern. From a structural activity point of view, the length of the alkyl chain did not exert any meaningful influence on acute toxicity". For more on that click here. The only concern is the potential contamination of 1, 4 Dioxane while using the ethylene oxide to create the ethoxylate.
Overall, Nature Clean is an excellent company and their products are a low toxicity for your children and pets. Nature Clean also works with Cottage and Lake Associations in order to help ensure that their products keep our waterways free of harmful chemicals and are constantly working to find new solutions to their preservatives. Although they do contain preservatives, I can hardly blame them, they need to produce a large amount of product to turn a profit in order to keep the research going; however, if you are concerned with the use of any preservatives, Nature Clean still has a wide variety of products in their lineup which you can view here. Reasonably priced and widely distributed, Nature Clean products can be found at most major grocery stores, the list of which can be seen here. I strongly believe in supporting my Canadian companies, especially companies who put in the extra effort to make a positive impact on our environment and our daily lives. Nature Clean is such a company and they are well deserving of my hard earned dollar as I help support their continuous development and improvement.
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