This tool is an online database that serves as a resource for information related to the safety of ingredients used in household cleaning products.
About
The Cleaning Chemistry Catalog illustrates how safety assessment data from publicly available sources can be incorporated into screening level risk assessment methodologies for household cleaning product ingredients used by member companies in the formulation of household cleaning products sold in the United States. For each unique ingredient, chemical hazard data were identified through a number of public online sources and databases. Exposures were characterized for each ingredient based on the product types and their typical applications. These findings were then combined to produce a conservative human health and environmental screening level risk assessments with a transparent and scientifically relevant methodology.
Please note these assessments are presented as a preliminary assessment of a chemicals risk and these assessments should not replace a robust risk assessment.
History
ACI developed the Cleaning Chemistry Catalog as one of its many efforts to shed light on the safe use of ingredients in our members’ products including the underlying scientific data and the methods in which these data are applied in making decisions. The first step in this initiative was to compile and make publicly available a comprehensive inventory of ingredients used by members in the formulation of home use consumer cleaning products sold in the United States. ACI released the Ingredient Inventory in 2012 with an update in 2016/2017. ACI has also just completed an additional 2020/2021 survey of member ingredients and will be providing that information to users very soon.
Hazard data for each cleaning product ingredient in the Inventory were identified to create a database that contains links to publicly accessible data. Chemical hazard data for each unique ingredient was found through a number of online sources and databases. While hazard data were being collected, exposure models were run to quantify human health exposure to each ingredient from products in which it occurs.
Exposure estimates, hazard data, and past findings were combined to produce a human health screening level risk assessments for ingredients, for which publicly available hazard data were available. A screening-level risk assessment is a highly conservative initial assessment of the chance that an ingredient in a cleaning product may pose a risk of effect during use. Each screening level risk assessment for a specific ingredient was based on the most defensible and authoritative data compiled and was designed to err on the side of caution, making conservative assumptions wherever uncertainty or a range of circumstances might be expected. Because of this, findings of "no" or "low risk" are relatively certain, while findings that there is a potential for risk are uncertain and will undergo a further less conservative assessments.
General Information
ACI makes no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the results obtained from the use of this data, and neither ACI nor its members shall have any liability for the accuracy or applicability of any information on this web site . While public data sources can be of value, it is necessary to assess products pursuant to all applicable scientific and regulatory standards.
To search for an ingredient in a cleaning product, you may use the search box below, or click the link to see a list an alphabetical listing of all of the ingredients included in the catalog. The list can be searched by entering either the ingredient CAS number or name or partial name into the search box. This will produce a list where you can access the human and environmental risk assessment results (if assessment has been completed). Links are provided which will take you toa summary of each screening-level risk assessment results, which include access to all of the data used.
There are many different naming conventions that can be used to refer to the same ingredient. To compile the Inventory, multiple names for the same ingredient were often consolidated; also, names that were general were related to more specific sets of ingredients. If the name of the ingredient you are looking for does not appear below, you can access the Ingredient Naming Translator. The Translator lists all of the possible naming conventions for an ingredient that were encountered in the survey of products and identifies the standardized names or names associated with it.
The Cleaning Chemistry Catalog is a comprehensive list of uniquely identified ingredients used by ACI members to manufacture dish care, laundry care, and hard surface cleaning products.
The Cleaning Chemistry Catalog was compiled from information on over 900 consumer cleaning products manufactured by ACI members participating in what was originally called the Consumer Product Ingredient Communication Initiative. These ingredients were, and still are, listed using a unique chemical name or trade name followed by one or more Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) Registry Numbers where these are available.
For more detailed information regarding our collection methodology, please see our ACI Ingredient Inventory Collection Methodology Document.
One will note that the Cleaning Chemistry Catalog contains many fragrance-related ingredients, but it is not necessarily comprehensive in listing fragrances used in cleaning products. A comprehensive list of fragrance ingredients used in a wide variety of products including cleaning products may be found in a similar inventory, The Fragrance Conservatory.
The next step in the project was to identify publicly available human health hazard data relevant to each ingredient that was identified. ACI has published the available hazard data associated with each of the ingredients listed in the Ingredient Inventory as part of a consolidated Identification of Hazard Datasets Inventory.
Development of the Hazard Data Portal
Hazard data for each cleaning product ingredient in the were identified to create a database that contains links to publicly accessible data. Chemical hazard data for each unique ingredient was found through several online sources and databases. The primary data sources searched included Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) Registration dossiers, U. S. EPA’s High Production Volume Information System (HPVIS), Human and Environmental Risk Assessment (HERA) reports, the Results of Categorization of the Canadian Domestic Substances List, and Japan’s Chemicals Collaborative Knowledge (J-CHECK) database. For more detail regarding our hazard data identification methodology, please see the ACI Identification of Hazard Datasets Methodology Document.
This effort supports the long term goal of the Cleaning Chemistry Catalog project to conduct exposure assessments and screening-level risk assessments to describe the safe use of every ingredient used in consumer cleaning products manufactured by ACI members. For more information regarding the ACI Identification of Hazard Datasets, please see the ACI Identification of Hazard Datasets Methodology Document.
Development of the Exposure Assessments
The goal of this phase of Cleaning Chemistry Catalog was the characterization of exposure for each ingredient, in the framework of the product types and their typical applications. Exposure modeling focused on the ingredients examined in the, their chemical composition, the product types each ingredient is found in, their intended function(s), and data from surveys of habits and practices for the use of these products.
For a description of all functions, please see the ACI Glossary of Functional Classes. This data was gathered during the compilation of the inventory in order to support the development of exposure assessments for each substance. For more detail regarding our exposure assessment methodology, please see the ACI Compilation of Exposure Assessments Methodology Document.
Compilation of the exposure assessments for the cleaning product ingredients was the third step in ACI’s Cleaning Chemistry Catalog which is an ongoing effort to provide easier access to human health and environmental safety data for the chemical ingredients used in consumer cleaning products manufactured by ACI members. This effort supports the long term goal of the Cleaning Chemistry Catalog project to conduct screening-level risk assessment to describe the safe use of every ingredient. For more information regarding the ACI Compilation of Exposure Assessments.
Development of the Screening-level Risk Assessments
Hazard information is often expressed in terms of levels of effect reported from scientific studies on test subjects or organisms. The No Observed Adverse Effect Level (NOAEL) is a dose at which no effect was observed. The Lowest Observed Adverse Effect Level (LOAEL) is the lowest dose at which a specific effect was observed. The "Lethal Dose-50" is the dose at which 50% of test organisms died, while the "Effects Dose-50" is the dose at which 50% of test organisms showed the specified effect.
The RCR is a means of expressing risk. It is calculated by dividing the estimated exposure to an ingredient by a hazard value. In the case of the screening level risk assessments performed as part of the Cleaning Chemistry Catalog, the RCR is calculated by dividing the total aggregate dose by a NOAEL value. An RCR below 1 indicates that a risk is unlikely because exposures are less than a dose known to produce no effect. An RCR above 1 indicates that there may be a potential for risk because exposures are higher than no effects levels. That said, RCR calculated as part of the Cleaning Chemistry Catalog are highly conservative and thus may overestimate the potential for risk.