CONSUMER’S DIGEST FEBRUARY - MARCH 2002

Is The Consumer
Really King

T
he Consumer is often referred fundamental rights of every consumer,
to as the King. But he is an particularly the right to safety and
uncrowned king. information.
The following are the rights of every A statement made by a senior
consumer official of Bureau of Indian Standards
The Right to Safety some time ago “that no toilet soap of
The Right to be informed Indian manufacture was guaranteed for
The Right to Choose safety and quality” irked the soap
The Right to be heard industry. The BIS official was talking
The Right to Redress of the technological transformation
The Right to Consumer Eduation from toilet soap to bathing bar.
The Right to a healthy environment Consumers are aware of the progress
and made by our soap technologists in
The Right to Satisfaction of basic elevating the status of a lowly clayey
needs filler to a super duper structurant that
Let us now examine if the Indian promises to give the consumer more
consumer has access to these for less (i.e.TFM) though not for a
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 Is the consumer really king
lesser price. In a rejoinder to the BIS,
the soap industry pointed out that the
synthetic surfactants used in bathing
bars are milder than soap. But there was
no protocol for determining the toxic
impurities in them. It was only after
the insistence by CGSI that the process
of drafting suitable methods was
started in BIS.
Most of the liquid soaps dispensed
in wash rooms of offices and hotels is
linear alkylbenzene sulphonate (LAS
based). The FDA has been ineffective
in checking this malpractice which
presents health risk to users.
If you take the case of medicated
or antibacterial soaps, mercuric iodide
was used in this type of soap. Topical
mercurial derivatives were withdrawn in
many countries and when CGSI came
to know of this in 1982, they
recommended to FDA that certain
restrictions were placed on the use of
mercuric iodide in bath soap by the US
FDA and that something similar
should be done here. It was only after
persevering this for two years that CGSI
was able to make BIS ensure that use
of mercuric iodide in soaps was
discontinued.
In a similar situation,
hexachlorophene which was used
extensively in toilet soaps,talcum
powders and toothpaste was banned
in this country after the adverse effects
of hexachlorophene were made known
by France and USA.
The most common germicide in
use at present is trichlorocarbanilide
(TCC). TCC is not heat stable and
decomposes into toxic chloroanilines
on prolonged heating. Although this
behaviour of TCC is described in the
Indian Standard for Antibacterial Toilet
Soap published in 1985, no method
was prescribed for determining the level
of chloroanilines in the product nor
the safe limit specified. In a tropical
country like ours, halogenated
anilidescan be associated with skin
disorders.
When we come to household
detergents, experts differ as regards the
damaging effect on the skin due to soda
ash in combination with the active
agent. The debate is with regard to the
relative proportion of soda to surfactant
but there is no absolute answer.
Meanwhile users suffer. Detergent
residues on clothes, especially children’s
diapers, and on food utensils are of
concern.
There is a special product called baby
toilet soap sold at a hefty price
commensurate with a mother’s love for
her child. The relevant Indian Standard
limits the nickel content in baby soap
to zero because of the potential of
nickel compounds to cause dermatitis.
No soap manufacturer tests his product
for nickel content – a likely contaminant
through hydrogenated oils.
The consumer’s right to be informed is
the most dishonoured consumer right.
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 CONSUMER’S DIGEST FEBRUARY - MARCH 2002
The label which is supposed to be an
important document of information
to the consumer says a lot but tells
him nothing. A lot of scientific
mumbo-jumbo assists in promotion
of products but much of it is not
helpful tothe consumer. Surely the
consumer should know what Vit E is
and why it is particularly useful in a skin
lotion of bath soap and how much of
this is contained in the product. A
deodorant soap is said to be
authenticated by the Indian Medical
Association. Is this an authorised
agency to approve consumer products?
If a deodorant soap is really medicated
then why doesn’t it get categorised as a
drug? Why don’t such soaps conform
to the relevant Indian Standard?
How does a buyer judge the relative
merits of various brands of washing
powders on the shop shelves which
range from Rs.20 to Rs.100 per kg? All
brands claim identical attributes.
Obviously the performance ratings
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differ. The consumer is left to his or her
own wits while making a purchase
decision. Indirectly, his right to choose
is in jeopardy.
Since consumer organisations took
up this issue and urged those
responsible for laying down standards,
a cautionary note has now been inserted
into the marking clause of Indian
Standards for detergent powders and
bars in view of the skin irritant nature
of detergent solutions. Users are now
advised to avoid prolonged contact and
to rinse garments and hands thoroughly.
This bit of caution is not passed
on to consumers by detergent
manufacturers. So much for infor-
mative labelling!
Speaking of informative labelling,
manufacturers are reluctant to list the
product ingredients on the pack. The
questions they often ask are “of what
use is this information to the consumer?
Will he comprehend and really benefit
from this information? Why should a
manufacturer disclose his product
formula? The marketing experts say
that such exhaustive labelling will clutter
up the copy and ruin the label design.
It must be emphasised that it is
against consumer interest to conceal
any information which is of vital
importance be it a food product,
pharmaceutical product, soap or
detergent.
Courtesy : “Keemat”