darkoshi: (Default)
I noticed today that Seventh Generation dish washing liquids contain benzisothiazolinone and methylisothiazolinone. Earlier this year, I had read that some people are allergic to those ingredients and can get skin rashes from them. I don't think I am sensitive to those chemicals, but I usually wear gloves while washing dishes anyway. Ecos is another brand I use, which doesn't have those ingredients.

https://www.seventhgeneration.com/product-claims
Some Seventh Generation Products contain Methylisonthiazolinone ("MIT") and/or Benzisothiazolinone ("BIT") as preservatives to keep the product stable and free of microbial contamination over its shelf life. Although these products have been evaluated to be hypoallergenic and/or Made for Sensitive Skin, it does not mean that a product will not cause any allergic reaction or irritation in any person, and that a small percentage of individuals may have some form of allergic reaction or irritation to MIT or BIT. Always use as directed.


There's A Preservative That Can Give You An Awful, Itchy Rash — And It's Probably In Your Bathroom (July 2015)
Deleo tested Lucy for sensitivity to around 70 different allergens and, at last, finally reached a conclusion: Lucy had a severe response to methylisothiazolinone.
At home, her parents tracked down the source of the MI — Suave Kids Body Wash, a product made by Unilever and marketed as “hypoallergenic” and “safe for kids’ delicate skin.”
...
“Of note, products marketed as ‘gentle,’ ‘sensitive,’ ‘organic,’ or ‘hypoallergenic’ often contained MI, thus emphasizing the importance of consumer scrutiny of product choices,” the researchers noted.
...
As for labels that use words like “natural” and “hypoallergenic,” Deleo says those terms mean nothing and shouldn’t guide your buying choices.

Indeed — even the federal government notes that “there are no Federal standards or definitions that govern the use of the term ‘hypoallergenic.'” The term means whatever a particular company wants it to mean… The term ‘hypoallergenic’ may have considerable market value in promoting cosmetic products to consumers on a retail basis, but dermatologists say it has very little meaning.


My skin was irritated, red and blotchy for years until I found out why because of lockdown (April 2022)
darkoshi: (Default)
Home Depot: The last time (June 2021) I used their self-checkout, it only gave "Print" and "Print+Email" options for the receipt. I chose the latter, but never got the email. Perhaps I typed it in wrong. There was no Email-Only option.

Lowes: The last 2 times I used their self-checkout, it only gave "Print" and "Print+Email" options for the receipt; there was no Email-Only option. When using the regular checkout aisles, the cashier (or maybe it is the card reader unit) gives me an email-only option. It has my email stored and linked to my payment card number, so I don't have to type it in each time, only confirm it.

Kroger: The self-checkout always lets me choose an digital receipt (as long as I remember to select that checkbox on the terminal). Now that I think about it, it's not actually an email receipt. I log into my Kroger account online and take full-page screenshots, which I then save for my records. On one page they show a receipt in the same format as what you would get printed out. On another page, they list everything you bought (using complete words, not abbreviations) along with images of the items, which is very nice.

Food Lion: Their self-checkout did not give an email option for the receipt. It also didn't weigh the items I put in the bagging area, nor nag me when I put my cloth bags over there, etc., like Krogers' always does.

Office Depot: In the regular checkout aisle, the card reader unit gave an email-only receipt option. When I typed my email in, I made a typo (two periods in a row instead of one). It did not automatically correct it nor give a warning. Instead it showed an error message that the email send had failed. It did not give me another chance to correct my entry, nor to get a paper receipt after all. I took a photo of the amounts shown on the screen with my phone, for my records. (I usually do that at Kroger too, just in case.)

A small local store: Had an email receipt option. But the cashier gave me a paper printout too, without asking. The email receipt that I received only listed the total charge, not any details about what I bought nor the individual prices. Therefore, I was glad to have the paper receipt to scan for my records.

Another small local store: Had an email receipt option. Both of the local store email receipts which I received were generated/sent by "Square". However, this store's email receipt did include the purchase details. So it must be configurable by the store, or something.

I keep wondering if receipts nowadays are less likely to use that thermal paper which is coated with so many chemicals, and more likely to be plain paper printed with regular ink. Sometimes I can guess one way or the other based on the look and feel of the paper and ink, but I'm never certain.
darkoshi: (Default)
Today I learned that in product labeling, "unscented" and "fragrance-free" can mean different things.

EPA "SAFER CHOICE Fragrance-Free" fact-sheet
Fragrance-free means that fragrance materials or masking scents are not used in the product.
Unscented generally means that the product may contain chemicals that neutralize or mask the odors of other ingredients.


What is the difference between “Unscented” and “Fragrance-free” products?
Unscented products are formulated to have no smell but can contain ingredients that have a smell but the smell has been neutralized by other components. A fragrance-free product cannot contain any ingredients that have been added to impart a smell but may contain ingredients that have a scent but are not added because of their scent. For example if a cream is made with an oil that has a smell, it could still be labeled as fragrance-free because the purpose of the oil is to act as an emollient, not as a scent. But it could not be labeled unscented. However, if a product is formulated with lavender, for example, but some chemical is added to mask the smell, the product can be labeled as “unscented.”


The Difference Between Unscented and Fragrance Free
Some raw ingredients may have a scent, which may be pleasant, and some not be pleasant but have a chemical smell to it. The term unscented may be used to mean a fragrance may have been used to mask an odor that is a natural part of the raw ingredient.

Raw ingredients that may have a natural scent and do not include fragrance chemicals, may include shea butter, cocoa butter, coconut oil, most herbs, olive oil, almond oil, honey, beeswax, and others. These types of raw materials or ingredients may not bother most people, but may be very annoying to others.


The Important Difference Between Unscented and Fragrance Free
It sounds silly, but "unscented" products typically have added fragrance agents used to mask the other smells. ... Masking fragrances are usually composed of toxic phthalates.
...
Phthalates have been linked from everything to testicular cancer to liver cancer, but they are still in almost all synthetic fragrances, including masking agents which cause a product’s other natural scents to disappear.


Buyers Beware When Looking for Fragrance Free Products; Read the Labels!
Basically, a product marked “unscented” can either mean they did not add a “scent” to the product (but it may or may not still have a smell from the other ingredients and/or chemicals) or they tried to “de-scent” the product (often using masking chemicals and/or fragrance).

The above page shows examples of products that are labeled "unscented" but with fragrance or masking fragrance shown in the ingredient list.


Phthalates( THAL-ates) The Everywhere Chemical
Phthalates must be listed among the ingredients on product labels, unless they are added as a part of the “fragrance.” Under current law, they can then simply be labeled “fragrance,” even though they may make up 20% or more of the product.

The above page includes a list of "the 8 most widely used phthalate compounds and their metabolites", which you may find on ingredient labels (basically, they seem to be anything with "phthalate" in the name, but often they are listed in the ingredients as 3 or 4-letter acronyms ending with a 'P'.)


Phthalates (FDA page)
Consumers can tell whether some products contain phthalates by reading the ingredient declaration on the labels of such products.

However, the regulations do not require the listing of the individual fragrance ingredients; therefore, the consumer will not be able to determine from the ingredient declaration if phthalates are present in a fragrance.


Hypoallergenic, Fragrance Free, and Unscented: How to Tell If There's Truly No Fragrance in Your Skincare
It's not always easy to tell if a product does contain fragrance. A few keywords are used to depict whether a formula is potentially irritating (enter hypoallergenic, fragrance free, and unscented) but these terms can be misleading because they aren't regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. "The FDA does not have the legal authority to approve cosmetic products and ingredients, aside from color additives," Lortscher says. "There is no regulation specifically defining or governing the use of the term hypoallergenic, nor for the labels 'safe for sensitive skin' or 'allergy tested.' Manufacturers may make those claims even if they have no supporting evidence."
...
Products labeled hypoallergenic can still have fragrance in them. If a product claims to be hypoallergenic, it means the product produces fewer allergic reactions than other conventional cosmetic products, Lortscher says. The keyword here is fewer—no product can be labeled as nonallergenic, because no product can be guaranteed not to cause an allergic reaction.



In summary, I've gathered (but could still be mistaken on some points) that:

Synthetic fragrances often contain phthalates, which are bad for one's health.

"Unscented" products MAY contain ingredients with a natural scent that some people find unpleasant, and MAY also include other ingredients (including fragrance!) to mask the unpleasant scents. Those masking ingredients also often contain phthalates, which are bad.

"Fragrance-free" products shouldn't include added fragrance, either natural or synthetic, nor should they contain scent-masking phthalates. But they may contain ingredients that have a natural scent, if the main purpose of the ingredient is not for its scent. So fragrance-free doesn't necessarily mean scent-free.


The reason I was curious about this topic to begin with was due to some lotion I have, one of which is labeled unscented and the other fragrance-free. In all other respects, they are the same. This lotion does have a slight scent (which reminds me of the smell of ink from ball-point pens!), which I believe to be natural. The ingredients do not mention any fragrance, perfume, nor phthalates. So a product being labeled "unscented" doesn't NECESSARILY mean that it has masking agents or phthalates. But it seems to be something to watch out for.

Neither term guarantees that the product will be scent-less. And neither seems to give a better indication than the other, of how much scent the product actually has.
darkoshi: (Default)
I was wondering whether carbonless copy paper (I had to look up what it is called - it's those pink & yellow duplicate copies of you get sometimes of documents containing hand-written parts), were high in BPA and/or BPS chemicals, like thermal receipt paper is.

That Wikipedia page indicates that yes, "The average carbonless copy paper contains a high concentration of Bisphenol A (BPA), an endocrine disruptor."

CVS digital receipts

Saturday, April 13th, 2019 07:17 pm
darkoshi: (Default)
This is another follow-up on my post about BPA & BPS in paper receipts.

At CVS, you can request digital receipts be emailed to you instead of getting those extra long paper receipts. They're supposed to "save it to your profile" so that you don't need mention it each time. (I haven't done it yet, so don't know how well that works).

I just created a CVS.com account and linked it to our ExtraCare card number. But I found no option on the site to sign up for digital receipts. It seems that it has to be done at the store.

Update: Q asked to get digital receipts in the store, and was told to install the CVS app on his phone; that he can select it in the app. I've verified that the app does provide a setting for selecting digital receipts. The next time we make a purchase there, we will see if it works to keep the cashier from printing out a paper receipt. I've since uninstalled the app, as I see no reason that it would need to be kept installed once you choose the option.
darkoshi: (Default)
I went to Kroger today, and the self-checkout had an option for no receipt (which I selected). There was no option for an emailed receipt. So after getting home, I logged into my Kroger account (based on the Kroger card) to check, and it has a "My Purchases" page. It lists each time I've shopped there with my card, listing everything purchased, along with the prices and even pictures of the items. Pretty neat. I hadn't noticed that the last time I logged in, when I was checking out the digital coupons which they now advertise sometimes on the shelves.

In 2011, Kroger phased out BPA from their receipts as well as their store-brand cans:
https://www.thekrogerco.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Statement-BPA.pdf

But they switched to BPS in the receipts, which is just as bad:
https://www.ecocenter.org/healthy-stuff/reports/receipt-paper-study-2018

As of 2016, 62% of their store-brand cans still had BPA:
https://saferchemicals.org/retailers/kroger/
darkoshi: (Default)
The risky chemical lurking in your wallet / New research finds that the BPA in cash register receipts can be absorbed through skin. (article from 2014)

Explainer: Store receipts and BPA (from 2017)
“When people talk about polycarbonate bottles, they talk about nanogram quantities of BPA [leaching out],” Warner observed back around 2009. A nanogram is a billionth of a gram. “The average cash register receipt that's out there and uses the BPA technology will have 60 to 100 milligrams of free BPA,” he reported several years back. That’s a million times more than what ends up in a bottle. (By free, he explained, it’s not bound into a polymer, like the BPA in a bottle. The individual molecules are loose and ready for uptake.)


Is BPA on Thermal Paper A Health Risk? - includes tips on reducing exposure. Yikes... "Quickly wash your hands after touching a receipt. Scrub with soap and water. If you wait longer than four minutes, it’s too late."

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