You are not alone. A lack of product ingredient information is a very common problem. Fortunately, the situation is improving. In the past few years, more and more companies have taken action to make product information more transparent to consumers, including the sharing of ingredients online. Walmart is one of these companies.
As outlined in
its Sustainable Chemistry Policy, Walmart has started an effort to list the
ingredients contained within its private label consumable products – personal care and household products
that you use up, such as aftershave, baby lotions, cleaners, or pet shampoo –
on walmart.com. Walmart’s policy also asks national
brand suppliers, like Procter and Gamble, Revlon and Pro-Sense, to follow this lead
and include product ingredient information on their own websites.
Sharing lists of
ingredients on Walmart’s website is a positive development for customers. Greater
online access to this information makes it easier to find out what’s in
products and to compare ingredients across products so that customers can
ultimately make more informed purchasing decisions. For an example, consider
cleaning products. If you’ve ever tried
to figure out what’s inside a
cleaning product while shopping, you know it can be difficult – for the most
part, ingredients are not required to be
disclosed on the packaging
of cleaning products.
Today, you can find on Walmart.com a list of ingredients for most private label products covered by the policy. See for example, “ingredients” listed under “about this item” for a bottle of Equate body wash. According to Walmart’s implementation guide, product ingredients are to be listed in descending order of concentration using a standard naming convention called INCI (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients). This standard is already in use by many product manufacturers and helps create consistency that is designed to allow for easier identification and comparison of ingredients across products. Walmart’s policy is being implemented in steps, so not all of Walmart’s product listings disclose ingredients as outlined in the policy and implementation guide. Walmart continues to build and improve upon this important first step.
We’re encouraged to see that product ingredient transparency is becoming more standard practice in the marketplace. We’re especially pleased with companies like Clorox and Seventh Generation that have taken leadership steps on ingredient disclosure by providing ingredient information in multiple languages and identifying an ingredient’s function, or purpose, in a product. This is good news for the growing number of consumers interested in making informed decisions about the products we buy and use every day.
But the benefits of ingredient disclosure may well extend far beyond our everyday shopping trips. Businesses that commit to consumers on ingredient disclosure provide valuable information that can ultimately help drive safer chemicals into the marketplace.
Jennifer McPartland, Ph.D., is a senior scientist, and Alissa Sasso is a research consultant. Both contributors work for the Environmental Defense Fund.