SB 258: Cleaning product ingredient disclosure

Federal regulations do not require manufacturers to disclose many components of cleaning products, including fragrance ingredients. Currently, only certain companies, such as Seventh Generation, voluntarily identify all ingredients on product labels. Various consumer advocacy groups have voiced complaints for years over the potential impact of allergens and other fragrance ingredients on sensitive consumers, including those suffering from health challenges or merely trying to be mindful of exposure to certain substances.

On Sept. 16, 2017, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 258, the Cleaning Product Right to Know Act of 2017. The law was introduced by State Sen. Ricardo Lara, motivated by his mother who had been a domestic worker for years. The law was supported not only by companies who had long been staunch advocates of such disclosures, including The Honest Company, but also by worldwide manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble and SC Johnson.

A concern held by manufacturers regarding the disclosure of proprietary ingredient information was assuaged by the inclusion of language protecting ingredients deemed to constitute "confidential business information." This term is defined within the bill and in those instances, manufacturers only need to provide a generic chemical name to protect those ingredients.

Under the law, companies will need to disclose chemicals in home-use and institutional cleaning products online by 2020 and on product labels by 2021. Given the logistical difficulty in creating different labels for California, and as other states are expected to follow suit with similar bills, it is likely that in the next few years, consumers worldwide could share in the knowledge and reap the benefits resulting from these disclosures.