The chemical era
Open the cabinet under most bathroom sinks or kitchen sinks and you'll find dozens of products never really designed around your health. They're designed around shelf life, cost, and a marketing checklist — a preservative that survives years in a warehouse, a fragrance blend cheaper and more consistent than real essential oils, a foaming agent added because suds feel like "clean," not because they do anything more than strip your skin's natural oils. None of it is usually dangerous enough on its own to make headlines. But it adds up, product after product, across a body that absorbs far more through skin, lungs and mouth than most people realise.
Our belief
Strictly speaking, everything is a chemical, water included, and we know it. We're not chasing "chemical-free" as a purity contest, and we don't think every synthetic ingredient is secretly dangerous. What we do believe is simpler: if an ingredient exists mainly to cut cost or extend shelf life, and a safer, natural alternative already does the job, there's no good reason to choose the cheaper one over what you and your family are exposed to every day. That test is the whole philosophy behind Pure.
What's actually in most products
None of these are secret or new concerns — they turn up across cleaning products, cosmetics and personal care alike, and better alternatives already exist for nearly all of them.
US law lets "fragrance" on a label stand in for dozens of undisclosed chemicals, protected as a trade secret — the FDA itself confirms companies aren't required to list them individually. We use real essential oils instead, so there's nothing to hide inside a single word.
Cheap, effective preservatives absorbed through skin more readily than once assumed. Reviews of cosmetic ingredients continue to flag them as endocrine disruptors with weak but cumulative hormonal activity. A simple mineral base doesn't need them to stay stable.
Plasticisers often hidden inside undisclosed "fragrance," and studied for links to reproductive and endocrine effects. Lab testing has repeatedly found them in commercial fragrances that don't list them on the label. Skip the synthetic fragrance and there's nothing for them to hide inside.
Added to waterproof, stain-resistant and long-wear products for durability — and built to never break down. In November 2023, the WHO's cancer research agency classified PFOA as carcinogenic to humans and PFOS as possibly carcinogenic. We don't use them.
A common active ingredient in household disinfectants and multipurpose cleaners. Emerging research links occupational exposure to asthma and reproductive effects, on top of a well-documented role in skin and respiratory irritation.
Released into the air by many sprays and cleaners — indoor concentrations run up to ten times higher than outdoors. Studies find even "green" cleaning products can still emit fragrance VOCs of concern.
Tiny plastic particles used as a cheap abrasive or filler in everything from face scrubs to toothpaste. They don't biodegrade, and most end up in waterways once rinsed away — still legal in many products, in many countries.
An antibacterial once standard in soaps and washes. The FDA banned it from consumer antiseptic washes in 2016 after finding no evidence it worked any better than plain soap and water — only the effectiveness claim, not just the safety question, fell apart.
The research
A closer look at where each concern comes from — not just our word for it.
| Concern | What the research found | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Synthetic fragrance | US labelling law doesn't require individual fragrance/flavour ingredients to be disclosed if a company claims trade-secret protection. | FDA → |
| Parabens | Systematic review of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in cosmetics identifies parabens, alongside bisphenols and triclosan, as chemicals of ongoing concern. | PubMed → |
| Phthalates | Lab testing of commercial fragrances found undeclared phthalate esters, with an assessed carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risk to consumers. | PubMed → |
| PFAS (PFOA / PFOS) | IARC (WHO) classified PFOA as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1) and PFOS as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), November 2023. | WHO/IARC → |
| Quaternary ammonium compounds | Review of occupational cleaning research links QAC exposure to asthma; separate animal studies link common QAC disinfectants to reproductive effects. | PubMed → |
| VOCs in cleaning products | Measured air concentrations found both conventional and "green" cleaning products release VOCs, including fragrance chemicals of concern, during real-world use. | PubMed → |
| Microplastics | Review of microplastics in personal-care and cleaning products finds them a persistent, unrecoverable pollutant once released into waterways. | MDPI → |
| Triclosan | FDA banned triclosan and 18 other ingredients from consumer antiseptic washes in 2016, citing no evidence of benefit over plain soap and water. | FDA → |
A note on how we use the word "chemical." We use it the way most people do in everyday conversation — shorthand for synthetic ingredients added for cost, shelf life or marketing rather than function or safety — not in the strict scientific sense where literally everything, including salt and water, is a chemical.
Most of what's above isn't proven dangerous at the doses in a typical product used as directed; regulators in most countries still consider these ingredients legal to sell. Our view is narrower and, we think, more defensible: when a safer alternative already exists and does the job just as well, we don't see a reason to reach for the cheaper synthetic option instead — whatever the regulatory minimum allows.
From Dr Kynan
Every ingredient on this page passed the same test before we left it out: could I explain to a patient, in one sentence, why it's in the product? If the honest answer was "it's cheaper" or "it looks better on a shelf," that wasn't good enough. If the answer was "it does something a safer ingredient can't," it stayed. That's not a chemistry degree talking — it's just the standard I'd want applied to anything my own family uses every day.
"If it can't be explained in one sentence, it doesn't make the cut."
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