No Tears Does Not Mean What You Think on Baby Shampoo
The 'No More Tears' Shampoo, At present With No Formaldehyde
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SKILLMAN, Due north.J. — The but hint that something is different inside millions of bottles of Johnson's Baby Shampoo arriving on shop shelves are two words: "Improved Formula."
The shampoo has the same bister hue, the same sudsy lather and — perhaps most important — the same familiar olfactory property that, for generations of Americans, still conjures memories of babyhood bath time.
What'southward different about the shampoo, and 100 other baby products sold past Johnson & Johnson, isn't so much well-nigh what's been added; information technology's what'due south missing. The products no longer contain two potentially harmful chemicals, formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane, that have come under increasing scrutiny by consumers and ecology groups.
In response to consumer pressure two years ago, the company pledged to remove both chemicals from its babe products by the end of 2013, and this calendar month, it said that information technology had met that goal. The reformulated products are making their way to shop shelves around the world and will replace existing products over the side by side several months.
The movement is the first step in a companywide effort to remove an array of increasingly unpopular chemicals from its personal care products, and is the biggest yet by a major consumer products manufacturer.
Johnson & Johnson has likewise promised to remove such chemicals, and others, from all of its consumer products past 2015, including popular brands like Neutrogena and Clean & Articulate.
In doing and then, the company is navigating a precarious path, investing tens of millions of dollars to remove the chemicals while at the same time insisting that they are safe.
The company is responding, executives said, to a fundamental shift in consumer behavior, every bit an increasingly informed public demands that companies be more than responsive to their concerns, especially when it comes to the ingredients in their products.
The complex effort carries both risks and rewards for the health care giant — it requires difficult re-engineering science of some of Johnson & Johnson's near dearest brands, but success in the marketplace could serve as a much-needed heave to a visitor that has been battered by a serial of embarrassing quality lapses and product recalls.
Cathy Salerno, the vice president of research and evolution for the company's consumer products segmentation in N America, said she had seen consumer attitudes change significantly over the concluding decade.
When Johnson & Johnson caused Aveeno, the natural skin intendance company, in 1999, it polled customers near their interest in the brand's ingredients. The answer demonstrated little consumer concern virtually the details — customers wanted the company to continue it simple. "They're telling u.s. the opposite at present," she said.
Other manufacturers are besides responding to these concerns. This fall, Walmart announced that it would somewhen require suppliers to reduce or eliminate 10 chemicals from cleaning and personal care products.
Target has said it would monitor suppliers' employ of potentially harmful chemicals, then give incentives to companies that use safer chemicals. Procter & Gamble has promised to eliminate phthalates and triclosan, whose safe has likewise been questioned, by the end of this year.
Environmental groups disagree with the safety claims that Johnson & Johnson makes about the chemicals it is removing, and say they wish the visitor would exist more forthright about the hazards. Notwithstanding, they praised the visitor for keeping its delivery.
"A lot of companies say they're going to exercise something, but in this case Johnson & Johnson actually did what they were going to do," said Janet Nudelman, director of programme and policy at the Chest Cancer Fund and the co-founder of the Entrada for Prophylactic Cosmetics, which pushed Johnson & Johnson on the chemicals.
Even earlier their removal, customers would non take constitute formaldehyde or 1,iv-dioxane listed on bottles considering they aren't technically ingredients.
Formaldehyde, which has been identified by authorities scientists equally a carcinogen, is released over time by preservatives, similar quaternium-fifteen. And 1,4-dioxane, which has been linked to cancer in fauna studies, is created during a process used to make other ingredients mild — important for a company that has sold billions of bottles of baby shampoo on its "No More Tears" claim.
Johnson & Johnson has removed the preservatives that release formaldehyde, and said it has reduced the levels of 1,4-dioxane to very limited trace amounts, from one to 4 parts per million.
Johnson & Johnson executives are quick to note that formaldehyde occurs naturally in many products — a person's exposure to formaldehyde in an apple, they claim, is greater than it is in 15 bottles of baby shampoo. And 1,four-dioxane is found in their products at levels depression plenty to be condom.
An outside analysis past the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics published in 2009 found that the levels of 1,iv-dioxane in many of the company's babe products were already at the target levels. But Heather White, executive director of the Ecology Working Group, a role of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, said there was not plenty data to know the long-term effects of these chemicals, and at that place was mounting prove that cumulative exposure can be dangerous.
Paradigm
"Volition a kid get cancer considering there's formaldehyde in their shampoo?" Ms. White asked. "We don't know the respond to that. But why is in that location a carcinogen in their shampoo? When in doubt, accept it out."
Taking information technology out, however, has not been simple. In remaking its baby products, Johnson & Johnson's scientists had a delicate task earlier them: how to remove the chemicals in question without compromising some of the visitor's most iconic brands.
"There was a lot of angst about it," recalled Ms. Salerno, who was one of the executives who oversaw the squad of close to 200 people who worked for two years on the projection. "Our people in the marketing department were determined that they wanted the exact same product."
But as the scientists set to work, they discovered that replacing the problem ingredients frequently led to a chain reaction of unintended consequences. I new preservative led to a snow-globe effect, with particles settling at the bottom of the canteen. But the fix for that turned the shampoo from a golden honey color to a irksome brown. Another alter turned the consistency to h2o.
The squad thought information technology had successfully reformulated the Head-to-Toe wash and even held a dinner to celebrate. But their hopes were dashed when the commonly articulate wash turned cloudy, and they were forced to beginning over. "I think the shrimp was neat," Ms. Salerno said. "Two days later, nosotros saw that."
The challenges continued: Two products were scrapped when they failed a peel test in adults, an initial stride before they are tested on babies. Birthday, the team vetted 2,500 raw ingredients and tested 12 to 18 versions of each production before seeking the opinion of 74,000 consumer volunteers.
By and large, the task was to make the change as invisible as possible. "If you can't tell the deviation, so nosotros did our chore," said Trisha Bonner, principal scientist for Johnson & Johnson's consumer products.
The team's next step is removing some other type of preservative, parabens, from their infant products, and removing those and boosted chemicals from their developed products.
Ms. Salerno and others say they sometimes go frustrated at critics who promote the idea that natural ingredients are inherently better. "I similar to remind people that poison ivy is natural," Ms. Salerno said.
Simply she said that the concerns of their customers, especially those related to health and safety, could non be ignored. "This lands correct at the heart and soul of what Johnson & Johnson is about, so we really had to take this very seriously," she said.
"I tell people, in 28 years with this company, this is past far the most challenging projection I've ever worked on," Ms. Salerno said. "But it's a real point of pride."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/business/johnson-johnson-takes-first-step-in-removal-of-questionable-chemicals-from-products.html
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