Hidden In Plain Sight
The Real Story Of How Labels Lie
Even the best labels can lie. This is a fact hidden in plain sight for all to see. For anyone who wants to know what’s really in their product, they should probably make and source everything themselves. If you can’t do that you need to understand how the supply chain works, what happens when single components and then whole products are blended together, what gets reported, tracked, and logged as well as what doesn’t. Most likely, you won’t be able to get all of this information so you’re going to need to trust the companies you buy from. Can you trust the products you buy?
Often times the label will be all you have to go by before making a purchase. Learn to read the code of labels. Even if they can not provide the full picture, they can tell a lot. Once you know how labels may be used to lure your purchase as well as obfuscate your understanding – then you can be better at decoding the truth of what’s inside the packaging.
I know this because I’ve spent over 15 years evaluating what goes into the products we use on a daily basis. It’s shocking how much labels simply do not, can not capture. Unfortunately labels are mostly a marketing tool, and it’s best to approach them with that in mind.
When I present to kids, I teach them how to be ingredient detectives. I take them through labels and highlight where labels hide information. You can be an ingredient detective too.
When I am talking about reading labels I mean take in everything the brand is telling you. There are the callouts on the packaging, often on the front of a package. There is, or should be, an ingredient portion of the label to review too. Hopefully ingredients and materials are listed in a way that allows you to make a decent determination of what’s in the product you’re considering. Now just in doing this act, we tend to feel a little righteous. But after more than 15 years of evaluating products, ingredients, processes and seeing under NDA what’s really inside the things listed on the labels — I’ve come to understand this unfortunate truth: Even the best labels can lie.
Food labels. Supplements. Personal Care products. Household products. Electronics. Housewares. Paint. Art supplies. Office supplies. Feminine Care. Clothing. Textiles. Furniture. All of them are problematic — and that’s if you can find a label. Many products we buy for our homes don’t come with inclusive lists of what the parts are made of, if they’ve been treated with chemicals of concern, or much else.
I don’t say this to discourage you, avid reader. I say it to educate. I don’t want you to be duped. When we look at labels we are talking about the entire package: front and back. Here are my top 10 ways labels can lie. So you can know better. And so that ultimately, you can buy better.
Problem #1 Lack of Transparency.
If you are a label reader, you may know that there’s a big push around Transparency. Organizations like mine are pushing brands, companies and suppliers for more transparency. Some brands are also pushing for this. Supposedly, true transparency is key to label reading. And indeed, without it, you can’t even attempt to know what’s inside something.
But what does this transparency really mean? To some brands this might mean putting 100% of what goes into a product on a label. But how far will they go in this list? Assume the label is only talking about what’s an intentionally added ingredient. However many ingredients contain sub ingredients. Will those be reported? For example some food labels do a decent job of this, in a chocolate chip cooke it will parenthetically list chocolate chip (followed by sub ingredients such as sugar, unsweetened chocolate, soy lecithin etc.) But this practices is not standard for personal care or household products label. Most chemicals are in fact made up of other chemicals.
True transparency for the righteous (and I consider myself in this camp) would need to include how something is made, the processes and chemical agents that might be added but not included on the ingredient list. Many extraction methods and processing agents can leave a residue or chemical footprint that gets into the final product without ever being listed on the label. This is why true transparency is complicated.
Furthermore, transparency isn’t a regulated or defined term. It can mean many, many things leaving companies self-define what transparency means to them without providing their own definition. Who really knows if their raw ingredients and material providers are abiding by those same definitions. No two companies have to follow exactly the same rules.
There are some companies doing a good job delivering on transparency, but even more are not. To help yourself, look for companies that tell a full story of how their ingredients are sourced. Look for the use of parenthetical information to convey sub constituents of seemingly singular ingredients. Don’t trust claims of transparency without a reputable third party seal or program that evaluates systematically for transparency.
The best companies should be making information available on how they push their supply chain for more transparency, they should share how they approach their ingredient selection, product manufacturing and processes to ensure they are sharing what customers want to know when they read the label — which is: what’s really in this thing they are buying?
Problem #2. Trade Secrets.
The allowance of trade secrets, trademarked ingredients and “proprietary” processes and/or formulations are all ways of “protecting” having to reveal what is in something. Trade Secrets are anti-transparency. Now, whether this happens to a single input: substance, material, or process doesn’t matter. If you see something proprietary on the label it means that you may never know what’s truly in the product.
The proliferation of trade secret ingredients and materials (including biotech, especially biotech) has made it increasingly difficult to determine what’s inside a product and/or what has been done to it without 3rd party intervention. Many 3rd parties can access this proprietary information under non-disclosure agreements. But that won’t work for the average shopper.
Trade secrets in products are commonly found in topline “flavor” and “fragrance” ingredients. It’s well documented that these terms are “back doors” for substances to get into products without labelling. It may not be true in all cases, but you have to presume that anyone using a broad term like flavor, even natural flavor, fragrance, scent, or perfume are intentionally adding ingredients that might otherwise not look good on a label. These might be plasticizing ingredients, pesticides and/or unsavory preservatives and other chemicals and synthetic additives. Look instead for a defined term like: flavor from (XYZ, naming the ingredients included), or fragrance made from (XYZ, essential oils etc).
Beyond undefined terms be wary of trademarked ingredients. Biotech ingredients have saturated the market and are often “proprietary.” They might have a common name but are followed by the trademark symbol. But other biotech ingredients that are produced in a lab such as vanilla and derivatives, lavender, frankincense, rose and more – can pass as ‘natural’ and may have no such labelling at all. Can you tell what’s in your flavors or peptides or how they were made? Obvious tells are trademarked ingredients with a TM or ® Registered R symbol which is the “tell” on the label urging you to exercise caution. Ask questions of the brand, read up, or pause until you can learn more.
Problem #3. Omission.
Omission is another problem that at least is partially due to a lack of defined rules for label transparency. But, in fairness, it can also happen due to space constraints as well as intentionally.
When it’s a real estate issue, ingredient labels can’t accurately reflect all that has been done to a products’ many ingredients. This is especially true for beauty and cosmetics where the packaging is small and ingredient lists are long. A good brand will address their processes and protocols on their website in order to give consumers a more full picture of how the company tries to make a superior product.
In beauty and personal care, things left off the labels might be something that forms in packaging. For example, certain chemicals in combination with others might form something else in pack. This has been known to happen with products containing formaldehyde releasers and/or ingredients that combine to form formaldehyde while in the packaging. While this practice is increasingly under scrutiny clever companies will still use this method of deception to lie on labels.
Another example is the case of olive oil. Every olive oil will be labelled as simply olive oil on a product. Some may be called out as a cold pressed, or first press extraction, or say where it grown: California, Greece, Morocco, or Spain. Still they are all labelled as olive oil even though there will be differences.
Yet the real omission for a generic olive oil on pack is that some are aren’t 100% olive oil. While food labels are supposed to indicate this clearly, often other products do not. I’ve seen olive oil on a package that is made up of a blend of oils and can have colorants and preservatives as well. These additions make ingredients cheaper but lead to inaccurate representations of the true ingredient and isn’t effectively policed. How can a consumer avoid what a label omits? If you know you’re buying a product using cheaper ingredients, that’s fine if it’s your choice but if you don’t know how can you avoid falling prey to label omissions? The answer is you need to be able to trust who you buy from. Are they using a 3rd party to vet their ingredients?
Problem #4. Processing.
I’ve touched on this throughout. But with every product, ask yourself: What do I know about how this product was made, molded, bottled, bagged and how might it have become ready for consumption and use?
Unless you are buying something in its whole, grown state directly from a farmer (apple, cauliflower, carrot), it was likely processed. Most products use processed ingredients but brands don’t want you to think of all those highly industrial and mechanized processes that are involved to get products to shelves. Even whole ingredients can wind up totally divorced from their original state.
Each ingredient has some processing, it’s like a story to tell. Every substance is a commodity, whether it’s cotton for clothing or a pomegranate extract for kombucha or sodium coco sulfate in your shampoo — all have been through processing to become ready for use.
Sometimes (often) this processing necessitates the use other substances; those substances may leave incidental, perhaps minimal, trace of those processing ingredients in the final product. You won’t ever see these on label. This just proves that how something was made matters. It’s meaningful to know how inputs are grown, extracted, processed and even stored. It matters if the facility or manufacturer that processes these inputs has rules about what chemicals are and aren’t allowed to be used there. It matters what was run on the line before your product got to it. It matters what kind of drums and equipment and lubricants are used.
But most of this will never be shared on the label, even though it’s all meaningful information.
Problem #5. Creative Naming.
Creative naming, aka crafty marketing, leads to calling things by less recognizable names, which can potentially mislead or avoid an issue, real or perceived, by customers. Perhaps this simply happens because there isn’t a universal naming convention or strict way to label. Anyway, creative naming leads to confusion. Some companies may use latin or botanical names if they believe it sounds better while others prefer common names. Chemical names can have confusing synonyms or may be followed by a parenthetical call out such as (made from a coconut). While that may make the chemical seem more approachable – is it? Labels rely on your lack of insider knowledge. Marketers use creative naming practices to drive poor label reading.
Problem #6. Confusing Labels.
These labels have been created to call out certain features but often are misleading. Stain resistant. Wrinkle free. Antimicrobial. Made with real _______ (lemon, cotton, etc). While that sounds good, you have to go beyond the single claim. Likely chemicals behind these call outs are the fact that stain resistance means PFAS chemicals are applied. Wrinkle free means formaldehyde-based resins were used. Antimicrobial means it contains or was treated with pesticides. Made with real _____ - only refers to one single ingredient. These callouts are confusing because the result may seem good but it’s important to know the chemistry that got it there. If a product said: stain resistant by PFAS, the forever chemicals – people might rethink their purchase.
Problem #7. Class.
This happens when a label says it’s made without something: BPA or formaldehyde.
BPA not ALL Bisphenols
Bisphenols not ALL Plasticizing chemicals…
PFOA not ALL PFAS chemicals
Formaldehyde not formaldehyde and ALL formaldehyde releasers
This is a class problem. Instead of avoiding an entire class of chemistry, a single item is called out as an honorific.
This happens because the marketers are smarter than most when it comes to chemicals. They have learned to substitute BPA for one of the 50+ other, but lesser known bisphenols to avoid trammeling into the recognizable chemical danger zone. Marketers also have data and research on their side. They know these call outs work.
Now you know that single-call-outs need to be investigated. You want to avoid all chemicals in a class. Don’t worry that you don’t know. Just recognize that any single chemical callout isn’t the whole story. You don’t need to know the chemical, just recognize that it’s use may be intended to divert your attention, confuse or convince you to buy the product. Do a little homework, see if they are 3rd party verified by a reputable source.
Companies that avoid entire classes of chemistries will talk about that commitment. They are worthy of your dollars
Problem #8. Delivery.
Most products go through a fairly long and intense process to get into your hands. They may take a global supply route that can expose a product or ingredient to contaminants. (Fun fact: even organic products may be sprayed with approved pesticides. Another fun fact: Non organic produce will be fumigated with synthetic chemicals. Yet more fun facts: This practice isn’t limited just to foods.)
Problem #9. Expiration Dates.
Most products require perishability dates. Although required, they aren’t always actual. Many products from food and food-like products such as pasta and Twinkies will out last their expiration. Same holds true for personal care and household items. In some instances, especially with foods, it’s possible that the packaging wears out before the stuff inside. (Ever tasted a cereal, chip, or cracker that tastes like plastic? This can be an instance where the packaging - or chemicals inside the packaging - have begun to leech into the food. Know the difference between Best By, Sell By, Use By, Packaged On dates and more. ) While some products really will perish by a certain date, others might be required to have an expiry date when they can last for weeks, months even years longer. It would be nice to know the difference.
Problem # 10. Self-Claims.
This is the scenario where marketing language is made to trigger a response and lure you into purchase. It’s calling out some ways in which a product might be better but not addressing any of the ways that the product is not living up to the best in class scenarios. For example a brand might say something like No harsh preservatives or, made with clean ingredients, or my personal favorite, no harmful chemicals. None of these claims truly mean anything. They aren’t legally bound, regulated OR defined.
This is the case where brands self determine ways to label based on their own definitions. Essentially think of this as a teacher allowing students to grade their own homework.
Buyer beware. Now you are all the wiser to the many ways labels can lie.