7gen Bloc

Imagine a food company that refuses to display the ingredients in its cookies and processed soups.

Imagine a personal-care company that won’t disclose the chemicals in its shampoos.

Both companies would quickly run afoul of regulators— federal law requires that the food and personal-care industries list the ingredients in their products, right on the label. Both companies would also lose many of their consumers, since people expect to know what’s in the products that they put into and onto their bodies. In each of these scenarios, secrecy can be a synonym for business failure.

But in the real-world market for household-cleaning products, secrecy spells success. The purveyors of laundry, dishwashing, and other cleaners attract millions of consumers annually, even though they aren’t required to reveal what’s in their products and they can include hazardous ingredients that are “safe when used as directed.”

Seventh Generation voluntarily discloses the ingredients in all of our cleaning products, by listing them on our labels and on Material Safety Data Sheets on our website. Some companies have followed our lead. But too many haven’t. And that’s not right. Not when some of the synthetic chemicals that are in conventional cleaners are known or probable carcinogens. Not when 200 human-made chemicals are found in babies at the moment of their birth, according to the Environmental Working Group.

Seventh Generation wants to change this sorry state of affairs for cleansing products, and we need your help. We’ve just launched a campaign, Show the World’s What’s Inside, that aims to give people the tools and knowledge to safeguard their health and the health of their loved ones. It’s a multi-faceted effort.

Show What's Inside includes a Label Reading Guide, downloadable to your cell phone, which helps you interpret labels at the point of purchase and understand the potential risks in many household-cleaning products. We are also supporting the Environmental Working Group’s campaign to make chemicals safe for kids and to tell decision makers why we need ingredient transparency. And we are asking: what makes you, you? What are the “ingredients” that fill your soul? By understanding what’s inside each of us, we can start to change what’s outside all of us.

Transparency breeds change. When the makers of household-cleaning products get the message that they will have to bare themselves to outside scrutiny, they will change their products’ formulas to make them healthier and environmentally safer. So please join us—show the world what’s inside.