Household ingredient · Builder / buffer
Borax and borates
Mineral buffers and boosters in some laundry and cleaning products.
- Expert review pending
Concern level
A minor or very limited concern, such as being an ultra-processing marker only. The concern level sets how many points borax and borates costs on a product’s receipt.
What the evidence says
-
Restricted useRegulatory
EU cosmetics rules restrict boric acid and borates: capped amounts, and not in products for children under 3 (Annex III). [1]
Evidence tiers say how sure the evidence is, separately from how much it matters. About evidence tiers.
Popular products that list borax and borates
3 of the 17,000 most-scanned products in the US with a GoodSwap page list borax and borates.
Names GoodSwap recognizes on labels (10)
- borax
- boron
- boric acid
- sodium borate
- borax and borates
- sodium tetraborate
- disodium tetraborate
- sodium tetraborate decahydrate
- sodium tetraborate pentahydrate
- disodium octaborate tetrahydrate
Sources
-
Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 of 30 November 2009 on cosmetic products
“cosmetic products shall not contain any of the following: (a) prohibited substances — prohibited substances listed in Annex II”
eur-lex.europa.eu