Looking up domestic products with hazardous ingredients?

[Will]

Is there a place on the Net where I can look up which ingredients there are in domestic products with hazardous ingredients?

For example ... my Kiwi Multipurpose Portector aerosol spray just has a warning sign. It says it is extremely flammable but does not tell me the ingredients.

Another product (Tesco Thick Disinfectant) does not this time have a symbol at. Bll but there are hazard warnings on the label and, again, no list of ingredients.

Is it possible to look up the ingredients in such products?

[Peter Parry]

Not really, but in some cases you can use Google, put in the product or (better) ingredient name followed by MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) and use some intelligence to interpret the results.

Propane or Butane, the flammable propellant used in almost all aerosols.

Do you mean Tesco Thick Bleach by any chance? In which case the key word is bleach, aka Sodium Hypochlorite, and an MSDS search for that will bring up many responses.

Using MSD Sheets requires a degree of interpretation however. Both Sodium Carbonate (washing soda) and Sodium Hydroxide (Caustic Soda) are described as irritants and have the following entries:-

(Sodium Carbonate) Skin Contact: Excessive contact may cause irritation with blistering and redness. Solutions may cause severe irritation or burns. Eye Contact: Contact may be corrosive to eyes and cause conjunctival oedema and corneal destruction. Risk of serious injury increases if eyes are kept tightly closed. Other symptoms may appear from absorption of sodium carbonate into the bloodstream via the eyes.

Sodium Hydroxide Skin Contact: Contact with skin can cause irritation or severe burns and scarring with greater exposures. Eye Contact: Causes irritation of eyes, and with greater exposures it can cause burns that may result in permanent impairment of vision, even blindness.

In reality Washing Soda is relatively benign, Caustic Soda is very dangerous. The real danger with MSD Sheets is that they are very good at listing every possible problem which may occur and very poor at telling you what will really kill you or badly harm you.