Don’t take our word for it. Here’s every fact on this site, with its evidence grade, its caveats, and a link to the source, so you can check us.
We start you on the strong ones: findings that have been replicated or come from one large, well-controlled study. Moderate and weak facts are here too, labeled for what they are. Use “Link to this fact” to share a single card.
What you can do / Government agency
People who want to minimize systemic absorption of chemical UV filters while the additional toxicology studies FDA has requested remain outstanding can choose mineral-only sunscreens with zinc oxide or titanium dioxide as the active ingredient, the two filters FDA's own review has found 'generally recognized as safe and effective,' or rely on protective clothing and shade alongside sunscreen.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
This is not a claim that chemical-filter sunscreens are unsafe, and it is not advice to avoid sun protection; the paper explicitly says its results do not indicate people should refrain from sunscreen use.
Source: Matta 2019, JAMA Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
Pump and trigger sprays put far less of the product into the lung-reaching respirable range than aerosol versions of the same product: recommended respirable-fraction ranges are 0-2% for hair, deodorant, body, sunscreen, and facial pump sprays, versus 2-35% for the equivalent aerosols.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
These are industry-compiled default ranges for safety-assessment purposes, not a head-to-head measurement of the same formulation in both formats; actual respirable fraction depends on the specific product's nozzle, pressure and formulation.
Source: Steiling et al. 2025, Toxicology Letters Industry-funded Link to this fact
What you can do / Government agency
Consumers checking an EU cosmetic ingredient list for a specific fragrance allergen above 2026-2028 should expect to see roughly 80 possible individually-named substances rather than the older list of about 24-26, including many now-named essential-oil species.
Moderate evidence: This is a practical implication of the regulation's content and transition dates, not itself tested by a product-labeling survey of post-2023 EU products in our evidence base.
Source: Regulation (EU) 2023/1545 Link to this fact
What you can do / Measured in people or real products
If you want an accurate sense of how strong your own perfume or home's ambient scent really is, ask someone who was not continuously exposed, since your own nose will have adapted specifically to that scent while remaining normally sensitive to everything else.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Based on an 8-person controlled study; the general mechanism (odorant-specific adaptation) is well replicated, but this specific framing is a reasonable extrapolation, not a tested intervention.
Source: Dalton & Wysocki 1996, Perception & Psychophysics Link to this fact
What you can do / Review of other studies
If you have diagnosed fragrance or deodorant-ingredient allergy, ask your dermatologist about expanded patch testing (balsam of Tolu, fragrance mix 2, botanicals, lichen acid mix) if a standard fragrance screen is negative but suspicion remains, since the standard screen is estimated to miss a meaningful share of true fragrance allergy.
Moderate evidence: Practice recommendation from a narrative clinical review, not from an interventional study measuring whether expanded testing changes diagnostic outcomes.
Source: Zirwas & Moennich 2008, The Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
Hairdressers, salon workers, and professional or domestic cleaners can reduce workplace asthma risk with ventilation, gloves, and lower-irritancy products or application methods where available, since this population-based cohort found both hairdressing and cleaning occupations, and reactive cleaning/disinfecting chemical exposure specifically, associated with higher adult-asthma risk.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
The study cannot identify which specific chemicals within 'hairdressing' or 'cleaning/disinfecting' exposure are responsible, so this is general occupational-hygiene advice, not a product-specific recommendation.
What you can do / Other evidence
A 2006 Belgian consumer survey found people burn scented candles only about 7-10 times a month for roughly 2 hours at a time, mostly in the living room, which is why realistic exposure estimates come out far lower than worst-case continuous-exposure modeled estimates.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Single market-research survey of one country (Belgium, 2006), commissioned by a government health ministry but not independently replicated elsewhere or more recently; candle-use habits may differ by country or have changed since 2006.
Source: Petry 2014, Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology Industry-funded Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
Ventilating a room during and after burning a candle is a reasonable precaution even when an industry-funded modeling study's exposure estimates look low, since those estimates depend entirely on which pollutants were tested for and how sensitive the test method was.
Moderate evidence: Inference drawn from comparing this paper's pollutant panel/detection limits to a later study's findings, not a recommendation stated by this paper itself.
Source: Petry 2014, Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology Industry-funded Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
Splitting 'hair styling products' into its five actual types shows a 15-fold difference in modeled exposure between the highest (styling foam, 20.71 mg/kg bw/day at the 90th percentile for women 15-39) and lowest (styling wax, 1.41 mg/kg bw/day for the same group) — a single regulatory default of 5.74 mg/kg bw/day for 'hair styling products' hides that spread.
Moderate evidence: Exposure is modeled, not measured; reflects French usage patterns (frequency and amount) which may not generalize to other countries.
Source: Ficheux et al. 2016 (exposure assessment), Food and Chemical Toxicology Link to this fact
What you can do / Self-reported survey
65.5% of autistic adults would support a fragrance-free workplace policy and 77.2% would prefer fragrance-free health care facilities and professionals, compared with 46.1% and 45.8% support among non-autistic adults.
Moderate evidence: Stated preference, not an intervention study; self-report survey.
Source: Steinemann 2018, Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health Link to this fact
What you can do / Measured in people or real products
Air change rate and indoor VOC concentration were strongly, negatively correlated across hotel spaces (R2=0.69): rooms and break/laundry areas with higher ventilation rates had markedly lower total VOC levels, and the hotel's existing ventilation (average 2.5 air changes/hour) was credited with keeping absolute VOC levels and health risks low despite multiple identified indoor sources.
Moderate evidence: Single hotel (Hotel 1) for the ACR-TTVOC correlation; one outlier excluded from the regression; ACR estimates from the CO2 decay method are approximate.
What you can do / Other evidence
Ventilating a bathroom or other small room during and right after cleaning (opening a window, running an exhaust fan) is likely to cut both the particle and VOC bump from cleaning, since the single biggest difference between a low-impact room and a high-impact room in this study was air change rate, not which cleaner was used.
Moderate evidence: Based on one study's four rooms, not a controlled ventilation experiment within one room; advice is directionally supported, not quantified for a specific home.
Source: Souza 2025, ACS Earth Space Chem, ACS Earth and Space Chemistry Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
When only cleaning (not disinfecting a specific pathogen), wiping up a quats disinfectant promptly rather than letting it sit for several minutes keeps both PM2.5 and TVOC much lower; leaving it the full label-specified 10-minute disinfection dwell time in a bathroom raised PM2.5 by 68% and TVOC about 8-fold compared with a 2-3 minute wipe-off.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Single bathroom, small N (1-5 per condition); a shorter dwell time may not achieve the disinfection the label is written for, so this is a cleaning-vs-disinfecting tradeoff, not a free upgrade.
Source: Souza 2025, ACS Earth Space Chem, ACS Earth and Space Chemistry Link to this fact
What you can do / Measured in people or real products
Adult men who used hair-styling gel applied nearly twice as much per use (95th percentile 10.3 g, n=40) as adult women did (95th percentile 4.3 g, n=41), while men used noticeably less liquid shampoo and less aerosol hairspray per application than women — the amount of a given product type used per application varies substantially by gender, not in one consistent direction.
Moderate evidence.
Source: Ficheux et al. 2016 (amount data), Food and Chemical Toxicology Link to this fact
What you can do / Measured in people or real products
Hairdressers and salons should treat glove use during hair-dye mixing and application as a partial, not complete, exposure-reduction measure, since hand contamination in this study was still highest during the ungloved cutting and drying of just-dyed hair.
Moderate evidence: The study did not test gloves vs. no gloves within the same task; see the glove-efficacy contradiction.
Source: Hueber-Becker et al. 2007, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
What you can do / Review of other studies
Whether an odor affects mood or physiology depends more on how pleasant a person finds it and what they expect it to do than on which specific plant or chemical produced it; hedonic (liking) ratings predicted physiological and psychological outcomes across most of the 18 studies reviewed.
Moderate evidence: Narrative synthesis across 18 heterogeneous studies using different odors, doses and measures; not a meta-analysis.
Source: Herz 2009, International Journal of Neuroscience Industry-funded Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
Hanging freshly dry-cleaned clothes out for 4 to 8 hours releases only a modest share of the solvent (about 8-19% in 4 h and 16-34% in 8 h by the authors' calculation), because the solvent leaves the fabric slowly (half-life about 16-34 h for wool, polyester/wool, and polyester/rayon).
Moderate evidence: Calculated from chamber decay rates of three fabrics, not a measured airing test; the one aired-out house run was confounded by load differences; 1989 cleaning practice.
Source: Tichenor 1990, Atmospheric Environment. Part A. General Topics Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
More ventilation of the fabric did not speed its solvent release in chamber tests at 0.25, 1.0, and 2.0 air changes per hour, which the authors read as release limited by diffusion inside the fabric; ventilating the room still dilutes what reaches the air.
Moderate evidence: One to six replicates per cell and large scatter (Tables 6-8); three fabrics; a Table 3 / Table 7 mismatch for wool at 2.0 air changes per hour.
Source: Tichenor 1990, Atmospheric Environment. Part A. General Topics Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
Do not swallow pennyroyal oil: ingestion of about 24 g (or 500 mg/kg) has been fatal with massive liver necrosis, while a person who took about 7.5 mL apparently recovered without liver damage.
Moderate evidence: Case reports of attempted abortions, not a controlled study; pennyroyal oil is not a flavor-level exposure.
Source: Adams 1996, Food and Chemical Toxicology Industry-funded Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
Decongestant sprays are meant for short use only: the authors support the 10-day limit but still warn that some people get rebound congestion after only a few days, so keep use as short as possible (the paper cites limits of about 3 to 10 days).
Moderate evidence: Authors' clinical advice from a small trial in non-allergic rhinitis patients, not a tested result.
Source: [[src-1999-ten-days-oxymetazoline-nasal-spray-benzalkonium-chloride|Graf 1999 (Arch Otolaryngol)]], Archives of Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery Industry-funded Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
Ozone-generating 'air purifiers' can turn the scent chemicals in air fresheners and cleaners into fine particles; the authors advise avoiding indoor ozone sources and cutting back on terpene-heavy scented products, especially on high-ozone summer days.
Moderate evidence: The advice is the authors' inference from chamber results; no health outcome was measured and ozone levels were set by a generator, above typical outdoor-to-indoor ozone.
Source: Sarwar 2004, Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
If a rash persists in areas of clothing friction, ask a dermatologist for patch testing with textile dye and resin series; PPD and formaldehyde in the standard series missed most textile dye and resin allergy (only about 7% and 33.5% co-reacted).
Moderate evidence: Single-center observation; the recommendation is the author's.
Source: Lazarov 2004, JEADV Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
Because untreated patients cannot be blinded, the review's authors caution that patient-reported improvement after a treatment is hard to separate from response bias, so a product or remedy claim is best judged on blinded, placebo-controlled comparisons rather than on testimonials.
Moderate evidence: Authors' interpretation of limits of the design; applies to subjective outcomes.
Source: Hróbjartsson 2010, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
If you have unexplained eczema, especially after wet wipes, a new paint job, or from shampoos and detergents, ask for patch testing that includes methylisothiazolinone; in 2011 it was not in the European baseline series.
Moderate evidence: Clinical advice from a review in 2011; check what your clinic's series includes now.
Source: Lundov 2011, British Journal of Dermatology Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
If you have unexplained facial or leg dermatitis, or work-related hand dermatitis, ask whether patch testing includes formaldehyde and the individual releasers (imidazolidinyl urea, diazolidinyl urea, quaternium-15), because formaldehyde alone misses about a third of these allergies in a Spanish series.
Moderate evidence: The paper recommends adding two releasers to the Spanish baseline series; it did not test whether broader testing improves outcomes.
What you can do / Other evidence
People assigned to daily sunscreen did not spend more time outdoors than controls (about 3.8 vs 3.9 hours a day on weekdays after the trial), so the melanoma difference was not explained by differences in sun exposure.
Moderate evidence: Self-reported outdoor time; one Australian community.
Source: Green 2011, Journal of Clinical Oncology Industry-funded Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
Do not replace diagnosed treatment for a serious condition with a homeopathic remedy: the indirect harms in the review followed that choice, including deaths of children.
Moderate evidence: Advice drawn from case reports; the review gives no rate of harm.
Source: Posadzki, Alotaibi & Ernst 2012, Int J Clin Pract, International Journal of Clinical Practice Link to this fact
What you can do / Measured in people or real products
If dermatitis follows where fabric rubs or sweat collects (neck, upper back, armpits, waistband), ask a dermatologist about patch testing with a textile dye and resin series, not just the standard series.
Moderate evidence: The authors recommend considering the series for suspected textile allergy; the paper did not test any avoidance step or outcome.
What you can do / Other evidence
If you have unexplained dermatitis under tights, dark synthetic clothes, or underwear, ask about patch testing with a textile dye series, a Day 7 reading, and testing a piece of the garment.
Moderate evidence: Clinical advice from reviewers; a Day 7 reading catches reactions missed earlier (21% of dye-positive patients in one Swedish study), but access varies.
Source: Malinauskiene 2013, Contact Dermatitis Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
Isoeugenol was uncommon in air fresheners: 6% of 109 products (up to 0.15% by weight) and none of the spray cans; limonene and linalool were far more common.
Moderate evidence: Dutch 2009 market only; listing on a label does not show how much reaches the air.
Source: ter Burg 2014, Inhalation Toxicology Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
Patch testing a small piece of the actual suspected garment was positive in 16 of 31 patients (51.6%), and in 9 of those 16 no other tested allergen was positive, so keeping the garment can reveal allergies standard test series miss.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Only 31 patients were tested with garments (likely selected cases); the authors note the rate is higher than the 12.8-26% in other series, probably because of patient selection; piece testing can also give irritant reactions.
What you can do / Review of other studies
Most dry-cleaning alternatives to perc are not proven safer: a 2016 review found the long-term health effects of hydrocarbon solvents 'not well understood', flagged siloxane D5 (GreenEarth) as bioaccumulative, and listed chronic effects for hydrocarbons and liquid CO2 as 'unknown'.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Secondary review funded by Australian Wool Innovation (wool industry body); 'systematic' is a self-label with no study counts or appraisal; relies on agency, trade and manufacturer sources. 'Unknown' means not studied, not shown harmful; much of the hazard data comes from agency and manufacturer documents.
Source: Troynikov 2016, Journal of Environmental Management Industry-funded Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
If eyelid or around-the-eye dermatitis persists in someone using eye medicines, dermatologists should patch test the actual product and each of its ingredients, since standard series miss many eye-drop allergens.
Moderate evidence: Authors' clinical recommendation from a single-center series, not a trial of testing strategies.
What you can do / Other evidence
Obstetric and gynecologic bodies (FIGO 2015, RCOG 2013) advise that pregnant women be told the sources of chemical exposure and how to reduce them, as a precaution despite uncertain evidence; in a French survey, 54.3% of 300 women had never heard of endocrine disruptors.
Moderate evidence: Advice is precautionary and says causal evidence is lacking; the review does not test whether avoidance improves birth outcomes.
Source: Street 2020, International Journal of Molecular Sciences Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
If a shin-guard or footwear rash does not clear with a barrier, sweat control, and steroid cream, ask a dermatologist about patch testing with pieces of the gear and, if available, acetophenone azine 0.1%; ordinary patch-test trays can be negative.
Moderate evidence: Expert recommendation from case reports; AA was not commercially available for patch testing in 2021.
What you can do / Review of other studies
If an aluminum antiperspirant seems to cause an armpit rash, an aluminum-free product is an option, and a dermatologist can patch test; the test needs plastic chambers and a reading at day 7, because nearly 20% of positives show up only late.
Moderate evidence: Clinical guidance by expert opinion; the authors do not cite a trial of avoidance.
Source: Novack 2022, Cutis Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
One cold 30-minute household machine wash (liquid detergent plus vinegar, air drying) brought all 20 retested garments (10 pregnancy jeans/leggings, 10 panties) below the 12.8 mg/kg detection limit, so washing new clothes before first wear is a simple way to cut formaldehyde.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
Only 20 items, one wash and one lab; the detection limit is high, so 'not detected' is not zero; only 12 of the 20 had detectable formaldehyde before washing; no multi-wash curve; same-study authors' own conclusion.
What you can do / Other evidence
For babies and pregnant women, wash all new clothing before first use; the study's authors advise this, and baby pajamas and bodysuits had no detectable formaldehyde in the unwashed state.
Moderate evidence: Advice rests on the single wash test; baby pajamas and bodysuits (0/20 detected) did not need it by this assay, but baby socks (1/10, 24.5 mg/kg) did.
What you can do / Other evidence
Dermatologists advise people allergic to formaldehyde to avoid formaldehyde-releasing preservatives too (bronopol possibly excepted if it tests negative), and people allergic only to a releaser to avoid that releaser.
Moderate evidence: Expert recommendation resting on cited studies and clinical practice; the review itself notes some sensitized patients tolerate releasers.
What you can do / Other evidence
If you have a persistent facial, hand, scalp, or underarm rash, ask for patch testing with formaldehyde 2% aq. and the releasers bronopol and diazolidinyl urea tested separately, because the older 1% formaldehyde test and formaldehyde alone miss cases.
Moderate evidence: Test-method change coincided with other changes; recommendation reflects expert consensus.
What you can do / Other evidence
If you may be allergic to lanolin, ask a dermatologist to patch-test several lanolin preparations plus your own products, and use a 10-day twice-daily forearm test (ROAT) to see whether a product is tolerated.
Moderate evidence: Expert recommendation, not a trial of outcomes.
Source: Johnson 2023, Cutis Link to this fact
What you can do / Review of other studies
Plain petrolatum is the usual lanolin-free substitute: it cuts water loss through the skin by more than 98% with essentially no allergy risk.
Moderate evidence: Secondary citation of one review figure; glycerin and some plant oils are also suggested alternatives.
Source: Johnson 2023, Cutis Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
In a stationary SUV, running the ventilation in outside-air (external inflow) mode gave total VOC levels about 56-57% of those in the other modes, and 7 of 8 health-relevant VOCs fell; the recirculation setting cut particles by 43-51% but kept recirculating benzene and phenol from the car's own materials.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
One medium SUV, one spray, engine on only for these runs, parked; the paper words the 56-57% figure both as 'to' and 'by' (abstract vs Results/Conclusion), so the size of the effect is unclear; not tested while driving.
Source: Lee 2024, Science of The Total Environment Link to this fact
What you can do / Government agency
For packaged US food, check the "Contains" line and the ingredient list; a "natural flavor," "spices" or "color" entry is only guaranteed to be free of the listed major allergens, not of other allergens such as celery or mustard.
Moderate evidence: Practical inference from the statutory scope; manufacturers may declare more voluntarily.
Source: FALCPA, Pub. L. 108-282 Title II (2004), Public Law 108-282, Title II, 118 Stat. 905 Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
Isoeugenol is a flavor ingredient (about 236 kg a year in the US) and also a classic fragrance allergen; the flavor panel's safety margin counts only eating it, not skin contact from deodorants or perfumes.
Moderate evidence: The article does not discuss fragrance exposure; 'allergen' status comes from other sources (Bruze 2005), not this page.
Source: Smith et al. 2009 (FEMA Expert Panel), GRAS Flavoring Substances 24, Food Technology 63(6), Food Technology Industry-funded Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
The FTC says 'has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration' or 'based on traditional homeopathic theory' alone does not adequately warn shoppers that a homeopathic product's claims lack scientific support, and perfunctory disclaimers are unlikely to work.
Moderate evidence: The Commission's judgment about consumer perception; it cites no consumer survey and instead advises marketers to run their own.
Source: FTC 2016 OTC homeopathic enforcement policy statement, Federal Register 81(239):90122-90123 Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
Veterinary homeopaths often advise against routine vaccination (except legally required rabies) and against antimicrobials, favoring nosodes; the Merck Veterinary Manual says nosodes have consistently failed to protect against infection.
Moderate evidence: Practice description is from one interviewed homeopath plus the AVMA article's characterization; the Merck statement is quoted, not reviewed here.
Source: AVMA 2017 (JAVMA News) Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
Do not use homeopathic products in place of medical care for chronic, serious, or potentially serious conditions; the Australian NHMRC (2015) advised against this, and EASAC warns that using them can delay appropriate evidence-based care.
Moderate evidence: Policy advice from public bodies; individual placebo-responsive symptoms may improve, which EASAC acknowledges.
Source: EASAC 2017, EASAC Statement (September 2017) Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
Do not give infants belladonna-containing homeopathic teething tablets; ask a pediatrician about safer ways to soothe teething.
Moderate evidence: Advice follows from FDA's findings on uncontrolled belladonna; the letter itself gives no dosing or injury data.
Source: FDA warning letter 17-NWJ-09, 20 Jun 2017 Link to this fact
What you can do / Government agency
FDA's draft guidance treats low-dilution homeopathic presentations (1X, 2X, 1C) of toxic ingredients, injectable and eye products, and products claimed to treat serious disease as higher-risk; a consumer can use 'homeopathic' on a label as a sign the product is unapproved, not as a sign it was reviewed.
Moderate evidence: Interpretive advice built on FDA's priority list; the guidance says it is nonbinding and that products outside the list may still be violative.
Source: FDA draft guidance, Drug Products Labeled as Homeopathic (Oct 2019) Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
FDA says homeopathic injectables and eye products are higher-risk because they bypass the body's natural defenses; in 2019 FDA found non-sterile homeopathic eye drops (Puriton) contaminated with Bacillus and with a pH high enough to risk corneal scarring and vision loss.
Moderate evidence: Based on FDA testing of samples from specific products described in warning letters; not all eye products.
Source: FDA 2022 Homeopathic Drug Products guidance Link to this fact
What you can do / Measured in people or real products
If choosing a cleaner to reduce VOC emissions, fragrance-free products were the clearest low-emission choice in this chamber test; products merely labeled green or natural were not reliably lower.
Moderate evidence.
Caveats
EWG-authored (advocacy nonprofit that ranks cleaners and licenses EWG VERIFIED to cleaner makers); Skyline Foundation grant; unblinded; Chamber test of 30 products, not exposure or health outcomes; ventilate and use less product regardless.
What you can do / Other evidence
EWG Verified bans quaternary ammonium compounds, formaldehyde releasers, isothiazolinones, phthalates, PFAS, boron compounds, and nitro- and polycyclic musks (galaxolide) in licensed cleaners.
Moderate evidence: EWG's own list drawn from other bodies' hazard lists; it shows what the label excludes, not that the remaining ingredients are harmless.
Source: EWG Verified criteria for cleaning products (10.24), Environmental Working Group, 2024 Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
If you have had a rash after hair dye, ask for patch testing that includes both PPD and toluene-2,5-diamine sulfate; the sulfate is not on the T.R.U.E. Test or the 2020 ACDS core series.
Moderate evidence: Expert-society recommendation, not a trial; standard series may be updated.
What you can do / Government agency
A person who must avoid a specific food ingredient cannot rely on the words "natural flavor" to exclude it, because the term covers a source category, not a fixed composition; the manufacturer receives the flavor supplier's ingredient label under 21 CFR 101.22(g) and is the better source.
Moderate evidence: Allergens are governed by separate law (FALCPA/FASTER) that these sections do not cover; the practical step is the page's inference from the regulation text, not a tested outcome.
Source: 21 CFR 101 (4-1-24 ed.), Code of Federal Regulations, Title 21, Part 101 Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
To earn EWG Verified a personal care product must score 'green' (1 or 2 on a 1-10 scale) in EWG's Skin Deep database and avoid EWG's unacceptable ingredients.
Moderate evidence: Score is a weight-of-evidence hazard rating from ingredients, not a measured exposure; product-level sensitization data can cut the allergy component by 50%.
Source: EWG 2026, EWG program criteria (PDF) Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
OEKO-TEX Standard 100 sorts textiles into four product classes: I babies and children up to 36 months, II direct skin contact, III no direct skin contact, IV decoration. The standard says only that the classes differ in requirements and test methods; the limits themselves are in a separate online table.
Moderate evidence: Class definitions are in the PDF; the strictest-requirements statement for Class I follows OEKO-TEX's web page, and the per-class limits are not in this document.
Source: OEKO-TEX Standard 100 (2026) Industry-funded Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
For a baby item the OEKO-TEX Class I limits are the tightest tier (formaldehyde not detectable, nickel 1.0 vs 4.0 mg/kg, lead 0.2 vs 1.0 mg/kg), so check which product class a certificate covers.
Moderate evidence: Class I does not tighten allergenic dyes (50 mg/kg) or bisphenols; Edition 02.2025.
Source: OEKO-TEX Service GmbH, Standard 100 limit values Annexes 4-5, Ed. 02.2025 Industry-funded Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
OEKO-TEX added limits for four pesticides in 2026 (dichlofluanid, pentachloroanisole, triazophos, alphamethrin): 0.5 mg/kg for baby articles and 1 mg/kg for other classes in STANDARD 100 and LEATHER STANDARD, 0.1 mg/kg for ORGANIC COTTON, and no intentional use for ECO PASSPORT.
Moderate evidence: Reading depends on the image column assignment; industry-run scheme.
Source: OEKO-TEX Association, Limit values: New regulations 2026 (customer information, 03.03.2026) Industry-funded Link to this fact
What you can do / Other evidence
A 'licensed' or 'registered' homeopathic product label tells you about manufacture and quality, not benefit; the committee warned that licensing and pharmacy sale lead buyers to read homeopathy as medically credible.
Moderate evidence: The committee's concern about public perception is reasoned from witnesses, not from a survey of buyers.
Source: UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, Evidence Check 2: Homeopathy (HC 45), Feb 2010 Link to this fact
Information, not medical advice. See also: myths we won’t tell you.