December 29, 2010
Seventh Generation Highlights Its Chemical Free Detergent
By ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN
LAUNDRY detergents have promised brighter colors and whiter whites for decades, but one brand of detergent is saying that approach should be hung out to dry.
“She should glow, not her clothes,” said a recent print advertisement for laundry detergent made by Seventh Generation, the eco-friendly line, which showed a young girl in a sundress. Along with being nontoxic and biodegradable, the ad says the detergent has no “optical brighteners.”
Widely used in detergents for decades, optical brighteners work not because of what they lift out of clothes but rather what they leave behind. The chemicals permeate fabrics, causing them to selectively absorb and fluoresce light to appear more white or vibrant.
The ad does not raise specific concerns about optical brighteners, but a Seventh Generation microsite declares, “Just say no to the glow!” and is more pointed. “The environment doesn’t need optical brighteners in its waterways,” it says. “Your family doesn’t need them on their skin.”
Still, while the site says that the chemicals “can rub off on our skin where they can cause a reaction that looks like sunburn,” and that “they don’t completely biodegrade and instead accumulate in fish,” it stops well short of arguing that they are a grave health or environmental hazard.
“We’re not saying the sky is falling,” said Maureen Wolpert, marketing director at Seventh Generation, which is based in Burlington, Vt. “And we’re not disputing that optical brighteners work — we’re just saying that our detergents work without using them.”
While many consumers are wary of perfumes and dyes, leading most major brands to offer varieties that are free of both, little attention has been paid to brighteners.
“Because it’s a topic that no one really knows anything about, it creates curiosity and generates an, ‘Oh, wow,’ ” Ms. Wolpert said.
Hoping to elicit such responses, the brand sent samples of detergent as well as hand-held black lights and digital video cameras to mom bloggers, and instructed them to wash similar shirts in conventional detergent and Seventh Generation. Then, the bloggers hung them side-by-side in darkness and shined the black light on them, causing the Seventh Generation shirt to barely appear and the other to glow purple.
The effort resulted in at least 34 bloggers posting videos about their demonstrations, according to the brand.
Some newer military uniforms are made of fabrics that are undetectable by infrared or night-vision equipment, but laundering them with products containing optical brighteners can render them detectable.
On Dec. 15, Seventh Generation asked visitors to its Facebook page with family members in the military to chime in about optical brighteners, and about 50 responded, many saying that they used either Seventh Generation or other brands free of optical brighteners because they had been instructed to do so."
The rest of the article can be found
HERE.
