Have you ever purchased a product for use in your home because you thought it was a safe, non toxic option, only later to find that it actually contained harmful ingredients that you’d rather avoid? It’s super frustrating, especially because you’ve likely paid more money for it.

In today’s episode, I’m going to share one of the worst offenders of what I like to call greenwashing.

Greenwashing is when a company portrays a false impression about the safety of their products, when truly their ingredients are telling a totally different story.

Greenwashing – Is Mrs Meyers® Really Non Toxic? – Episode 15

Grab Your FREE Label Reading Guide

You might already be familiar with the brand I’m talking about … Mrs. Meyers®. You can probably find Mrs. Meyers® in the natural or organic aisle of your local grocery store. They make products like surface cleaners, laundry detergent, dish soap, even things like body wash and hand soap. But Mrs. Meyers® is truly anything but safe. In fact, they’re one of the worst greenwashers on the market today.

The packaging is very clean and crisp. It conveys an impression of back-to-basics. When you look at the scent names, it even leads you to believe that they’re only using essential oils for the fragrant portion of their products.

The Fragrance Loophole

Speaking of fragrance, this is a big problem not only with greenwashed brand Mrs. Meyers® but many other brands, as well.

Fragrance is considered a loophole in the labeling laws, and companies don’t need to tell you what’s in the fragrant portion of their products. Now, I will say that Mrs. Meyers® is leading the charge in that they’re seeing that consumers are really wanting ingredient disclosure. So they’ve begun listing all of the ingredients in the fragrant portion of their products, which sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it?

However, if you were to try to research any of these fragrance ingredients, you’re not going to find safety information on them anywhere on the internet. Meanwhile, researchers have found that many, in fact, a large majority of, ingredients used in fragrance are carcinogenic and have other health issues that are related to them.

You can read more about fragrance here.

Harmful Ingredient – Methylisothiazolinone

The other issue with Mrs. Meyers® is their use of a preservative called methylisothiazolinone. It’s kind of a tongue twister that is thankfully often abbreviated MI. Methylisothiazolinone is what’s known as a skin sensitizer, which means that it can give you all sorts of really terrible skin reactions from anywhere from mild dry skin and eczema to all out blisters, welts and peeling skin.

If you were to Google “methylisothiazolinone skin reaction” and click “Images”, you’ll see a staggering number of photos of people sharing what this ingredient has done to their skin.

Methylisothiazolinone is also thought to be a neurotoxin, which means that it may be toxic to nerve cells.

Not only that, but MI is also very hazardous to aquatic life. And that’s really concerning, when you consider that a large majority of Mrs. Meyer’s products get rinsed down the drain and end up in our water supply.

So not only is methylisothiazolinone harmful for you and your family, it’s bad for the environment as well.

Thankfully there are safe options. Join the Toxic Free Friends Facebook community (and say that Sharon Mahan referred you) to learn about a line of products to replace Mrs Meyers in your home!

Have you ever discovered that a product you thought was safe for your family actually contained harmful chemicals that you’d rather avoid? If so, drop a comment here on the blog. Tell me your story, because it deserves to be heard!