What are surfactants? Types, history, rules in Japan and abroad, effects on the body, and what the “strength rankings” really are

PR This article contains affiliate links to Rakuten Ichiba, Amazon, and A8.net (“See on Rakuten” and others). What it says is based on official documents, laws, and papers, regardless of whether an ad is attached. The “See on Amazon.co.jp” and “See on Yahoo! Shopping” links are also affiliate links.

Laundry detergent, shampoo, toothpaste, fabric softener. Turn the package over and almost every product says “surfactant” (界面活性剤). The “emulsifiers” (乳化剤) in mayonnaise and bread are also members of the surfactant family.

You also hear things like “surfactants are bad for your skin,” “synthetic surfactants are dangerous and soap is safe,” and “they are banned overseas.”

In this article, we check the following against official documents, laws, and papers:

• What a surfactant is, how surfactants came about, and what types there are
• What they are used for, and which familiar products contain them
• Whether the “strength rankings” you often see online are true
• What is known and not known about their effects on the body
• How they are treated in Japan and abroad, and whether any are banned

For how to read the back label of a detergent, see the article on additive-free detergents. For the full ingredient lists of shampoo, see the article on additive-free shampoo and body wash. For the “transdermal toxins” (経皮毒) claim, see the article on transdermal toxins and household products.

Bottom line

• “Surfactant” is the general name for substances that have a “water-loving part” and an “oil-loving part” within a single molecule. They gather at the boundary (interface) between water and oil, wrap up dirt to wash it away, and mix water with oil. Soap is also a kind of surfactant, and the law (the Household Goods Quality Labeling Act) lists it as one of the “anionic surfactants”
• The labeling rules for detergents have no category called “synthetic surfactant.” What the law divides is the product itself: “soap,” “synthetic detergent,” and “composite soap.” Many “plant-derived” detergents have “synthetic detergent” as their product category
• Among the countries we checked (Japan, the EU, the US, and Canada), none bans “surfactants” as a whole. What is banned or restricted is individual substances and uses: those that do not break down easily (the EU Detergents Regulation), nonylphenol-based ones, fluorinated ones (PFOS, PFOA, and others), and POE tallowamine, a herbicide adjuvant
• The “strength rankings” reshuffle when you change the yardstick. The order differs for skin irritation, effectiveness against the new coronavirus, and toxicity to fish and water plants. Most of the ranking tables you see online do not state the test conditions
• The effects confirmed in people are hand eczema and contact dermatitis (skin), eye injury, and poisoning from accidental ingestion. With pod-type liquid laundry detergents, accidents involving accidental ingestion by children and older adults continue. On the other hand, it has not been confirmed in people that surfactants “enter through the skin and build up in the body,” or that emulsifiers in food cause disease
• When choosing, rather than “soap or synthetic,” it is more reliable to look at the type written in the “surfactant” field on the back label, and at how you use the product (whether you wear gloves, whether you rinse, whether it is within a child’s reach)

Products featured in this article

What is a surfactant?

A surfactant is a substance that has both a “water-loving part” (hydrophilic group) and an “oil-loving part” (lipophilic group, also called a hydrophobic group) within a single molecule. It gathers at a “boundary” (interface) such as water and oil, water and air, or water and dirt, and changes its properties.

The Japan Soap and Detergent Association (JSDA, an industry group) sums up what surfactants do in four functions.

When the concentration of a surfactant dissolved in water exceeds a certain value (the critical micelle concentration), the molecules start to form particles (micelles) with their oil-loving sides pointing inward. As micelles take oily dirt inside, the dirt is pulled away into the water. The assessment document from the WHO’s International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) says, for linear alkylbenzene sulfonates (LAS), that micelles form at low concentrations and dissolve oils and stains.

In its new Detergents Regulation of 2026, the EU defined surfactants in law. A surfactant is a substance that “consists of one or more hydrophilic groups and one or more hydrophobic groups, lowers the surface tension of water to below 45 mN/m, forms films or micelles, and adsorbs onto solid surfaces.”

Surfactants are not only for detergents.

• Food: The industry group explains that mayonnaise and butter contain “natural surfactants.” The lecithin in soybeans and egg yolk, and the “emulsifiers” in bread and ice cream, are surfactants too
• Inside the body: They are also made in the body to digest fat (the industry group’s explanation). The lungs contain “pulmonary surfactant,” which keeps the lungs from collapsing
• Medicine: Artificial surfactant is used to treat premature babies who lack pulmonary surfactant (a 1980 Japanese report, described later)

For readers who want to learn how they work from the chemistry, there is an introduction with many illustrations.

Soap is also a surfactant

You may come across pages saying “soap is not a surfactant,” but even in the eyes of the law, soap is a kind of surfactant. The rules that set the labeling for detergents under the Household Goods Quality Labeling Act (the Miscellaneous Industrial Goods Quality Labeling Regulations) divide surfactants into “anionic, nonionic, amphoteric, and cationic,” and list soap (pure soap content = sodium fatty acid salts and potassium fatty acid salts) as one of the “anionic, fatty acid type”.

The same regulations divide products as follows.

These regulations have no category called “synthetic surfactant” (as far as Urayomi has been able to confirm). The phrase “free of synthetic surfactants,” often seen in advertising, is not a term set by law; it is wording that makers use on their own.

The Japan Soap and Detergent Association (an industry group) also explains that “Japan is the only country in the world with a law that treats soap separately from other surfactants” (this is the industry group’s explanation, and Urayomi has not checked the laws of every country).

If you want laundry detergent made of “pure soap content” only, choose a product whose product category is “laundry soap.” Shabondama Soap’s “Snowl” is a liquid laundry soap whose ingredient list is only “純石けん分（30%、脂肪酸カリウム、脂肪酸ナトリウム）” (pure soap content, 30%, potassium fatty acid salt, sodium fatty acid salt).

Soaps from Miyoshi Soap and Shabondama Soap (for laundry, hand soap, shampoo, and more) are also gathered at the eco goods online shop “Eco Depa Japan.”

History and origins

Explanations that put the origin of soap at “2800 BCE in Babylon” are also common, but we could not check the original paper, so here we use the industry group’s explanation (3000s BCE).

Research on pulmonary surfactant began in 1959, when Avery and Mead in the US showed that “respiratory distress syndrome in premature babies is caused by a lack of pulmonary surfactant.” A review of the history of medicine places the introduction of replacement therapy in 1980, by Fujiwara and colleagues in Japan. Pulmonary surfactant preparations (Surfacten) are still used today.

Types

Surfactants are divided into four kinds, according to what electric charge the water-loving part carries when dissolved in water.

Cationic surfactants stick to the surfaces of hair and fabric, which tend to be negatively charged, so they are used in fabric softeners and rinses. In 1962, Kao launched “Kao Softer,” a softening finish and antistatic agent (renamed “Humming” in 1966).

There are also surfactants made by plants and microorganisms. Saponin, found in the fruit skin of the soapberry and the bark of the quillaja tree, and lecithin from soybeans and egg yolk, are used in Japan as food additives (existing additives). In 1968, Kei Arima and colleagues reported “surfactin,” a surfactant made by Bacillus subtilis.

“Amino acid type,” “plant-derived,” and “naturally derived” are not different ways of saying the type of surfactant; they are statements about raw materials. For example, most amino acid types are anionic surfactants, made from coconut oil fatty acids and amino acids.

How much are they used in Japan?

According to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) production dynamics statistics, Japan’s production of surfactants (the weight of the surfactants themselves) was about 1.02 million tons in 2025. Compared with 2003, the share of nonionic has risen and the share of anionic has fallen.

Synthetic laundry detergent has shifted greatly over the past 20-odd years from powder to liquid.

Among the surfactants covered by the estimates of household emissions (PRTR), the ones with the largest shipment volumes are, in order, AE (polyoxyethylene alkyl ether), LAS, and AES. According to the Ministry of the Environment’s estimate, of the chemicals released from households in fiscal 2023 (about 34 thousand tons), AE alone made up 35%, LAS 14%, and AES 7.3% (these are amounts before sewage treatment).

Uses and commonly used products

Surfactants are not only for washing.

Let’s look at what is actually in products whose makers publish their ingredients (publishing ingredients of household products follows a voluntary standard of the industry group).

There is no fixed pairing such as “liquid detergents contain LAS” or “dish detergents contain amine oxide.” Even within the same kind of product, the makers and products differ. Looking at the “surfactant” field on the back label is the most reliable way (for how to read it, see the article on additive-free detergents).

For a dish detergent that is unscented and uncolored but synthetic, there is Saraya’s “Yashinomi” dish detergent. The maker describes it as “free of petroleum-based synthetic surfactants,” but its product category is “dish synthetic detergent” (台所用合成洗剤), and the surfactants are “16%, sodium alkyl ether sulfate, fatty acid alkanolamide.” It is an example where, even though it is plant-derived, the legal category is “synthetic detergent.”

The same goes for laundry. The All things in Nature laundry detergent is a synthetic laundry detergent (neutral) whose surfactants are “16%, higher alcohol type (nonionic), coconut oil fatty acid alkanolamide.”

What the “strength rankings” really are

Online you often see “cleaning power rankings” and “irritation rankings” such as “higher alcohol type > olefin type > … > amino acid type.” But most of these ranking tables do not say at what concentration, or by what yardstick, the comparison was made.

When you line up studies and official assessments that compared under the same conditions, the order reshuffles each time you change the yardstick.

Here is what this table tells us.

• Neither “betaine (amphoteric) is gentle” nor “soap is gentle” holds regardless of conditions: it depends on the conditions. In a test with a 24-hour patch, betaine was less irritating than SLS (Nicander 2003), but with a long application at a high concentration, betaine reacted in more people
• There are differences even within the same type. Among alkyl sulfates, the one with 12 carbons (SLS) was the most irritating, and chains both longer and shorter were weaker (Wilhelm 1993)
• A dermatology review (Effendy & Maibach 1995) states, as a rough trend, that “anionics are widely recognized as irritants, cationics are at least as irritating and more toxic to cells, and nonionics are the least irritating.” It also states that this classification cannot accurately determine how irritating an individual substance is
• We found no official data comparing the cleaning power of each type of surfactant under the same conditions. Cleaning power varies greatly with the kind of dirt (oil, sebum, mud), the hardness of the water, the temperature, and whether builders are present
• There is also the “zein test,” which estimates irritation from how much protein (corn zein) dissolves, but we found no peer-reviewed paper with a table of numbers lining up many surfactants under the same conditions. Raw-material makers’ documents have such tables, but with cautions, such as readings coming out lower than the real value when magnesium is present

In short, “amino acid type = gentle,” “soap = safe and eco-friendly,” and “synthetic = dangerous” are all things that cannot be said unless you first fix a single yardstick.

Effects on the body

First, a summary of what is known and how far.

Skin: hand eczema

The clearest effect on the body from surfactants is hand eczema.

• SLS is used as the “standard irritant” in studies of skin irritation. The European Society of Contact Dermatitis has issued guidelines for tests that use SLS, and in dermatology clinics in Germany and elsewhere, 0.25% SLS is applied in patch tests as a control to see how easily the skin reacts. In an analysis of patch tests on 43,478 people, 22.4% were positive (mostly weak redness), and strong reactions were more common in men, people aged 40 and over, people with work-related dermatitis, and people with hand eczema (Forkel 2026)
• The WHO/IPCS assessment says that LAS, AOS, and AS “remove fats from the skin surface, dissolve out natural moisturizing factors, denature proteins in the outer layer of the epidermis, and make the skin more permeable to water and other substances.” It also says that solutions of up to 1% applied for 24 hours caused only mild irritation
• The Japanese Dermatological Association’s “Guidelines for the Management of Hand Eczema” (2018) say that irritant hand eczema is caused by “everyday items such as chemicals and detergents,” and that such reactions occur more readily where the skin barrier is already weakened. It says protective gloves for wet work “may be considered” (strength of recommendation C1), and, because wearing them for a long time can instead damage the skin, recommends wearing cotton gloves underneath

If hand eczema from washing dishes bothers you, there are household gloves. Showa Glove’s “Nice Hand Mu” is a medium-thickness glove made of vinyl chloride.

Contact dermatitis (allergy)

Separate from irritant hand eczema, there is also “contact dermatitis” (allergic contact dermatitis, かぶれ), which occurs when the body reacts to a specific ingredient.

• Cocamidopropyl betaine (an amphoteric surfactant in shampoos and the like) was chosen as the American Contact Dermatitis Society’s “Allergen of the Year” for 2004. The cause is thought to be impurities left over from manufacturing (amidoamine and dimethylaminopropylamine)
• Alkyl glucosides (decyl glucoside and lauryl glucoside) were the “Allergen of the Year” for 2017. In a test on 24,097 people at North American dermatology clinics, 2.0% were positive
• In a North American test of 10,877 people from 2009 to 2014, 1.4% were positive for cocamidopropyl betaine, 0.8% for cocamide DEA, and so on

These are figures for people who visited a dermatologist for dermatitis and were tested, not how many people in the general population react. They also show that contact dermatitis can occur even with alkyl glucosides and betaines, which are often described as “plant-derived.”

Eyes

In a US cosmetic ingredient review report (CIR 1983), when 10% SLS was put into rabbits’ eyes and not rinsed out, the cornea was damaged. The explanation from the Japan Poison Information Center, which the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan cites, also says that liquid laundry detergents “may damage the cornea if they get into the eyes.” If it gets into the eyes, rinse immediately and thoroughly with water.

Accidental ingestion: pod-type liquid detergents

“Pod-type liquid detergents” (so-called gel balls), which wrap concentrated liquid detergent in a water-soluble film, continue to cause accidental ingestion by children and older adults.

• According to the Consumer Affairs Agency and the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan, from April 2014, when the leading products appeared, to the end of January 2015, 152 accident reports were collected. 72.4% involved children aged 3 or under; 68.4% were put in the mouth or swallowed, and 30.3% got into the eyes
• In 2024, the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan announced that accidents in which older adults aged 70 and over accidentally put them in the mouth were also occurring, and that there were 2 cases of death after putting one in the mouth
• Synthetic liquid laundry detergents contain about 20 to 75% anionic and nonionic surfactants (about 50 to 75% for concentrated types) (from a book edited by the Japan Poison Information Center and materials from the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan)
• In 2024 the Japan Poison Information Center received 22,475 consultations, of which 296 were about clothing detergents (192 of them for children aged 5 and under)

Since June 2015, the EU has legally required pod-type liquid detergents to have an opaque outer package, a lid that is hard for children to open, a bitter taste that makes them spit it out within 6 seconds of putting it in the mouth, and a film that does not dissolve for 30 seconds in water. The US takes similar measures through a voluntary industry standard. We could not check the content of the voluntary measures of the Japanese industry this time.

In homes with children or people with dementia, keep pod types out of reach with the lid closed.

If swallowed: effects on the whole body

• According to the WHO/IPCS assessment, LAS, AOS, and AS are absorbed from the digestive tract, reach the whole body, are metabolized, and are excreted mainly in urine
• The guide values for acute toxicity (the dose at which half of the rats die, LD50) are 404 to 1,470 mg per kg of body weight for LAS, 1,000 to 4,120 mg for AS, and 0.8 to 1.1 g for SLS. These are values for animals and cannot be directly translated into dangerous doses for people
• The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies cocamide DEA (coconut oil fatty acid diethanolamide) as “possibly carcinogenic to humans (2B)” (2013). The basis is animal studies; there is no evidence in people. LAS, SLS, SLES, and quaternary ammonium salts have not been evaluated by IARC

Mouth: toothpaste and mouth ulcers

Many toothpastes contain SLS to make them foam. Study results on the link between recurrent mouth ulcers (recurrent aphthous stomatitis) and SLS are inconsistent.

• A systematic review (Alli 2019) pooling four randomized controlled trials (124 people) found that toothpaste without SLS reduced the number, duration, and pain of mouth ulcers, and concluded “there may be a benefit, but higher-quality trials are needed”
• In a 90-person trial (Shim 2012), the number of ulcers did not change, and only the duration and pain decreased. In a 47-person trial (Healy 1999), there was no difference

If you have recurring mouth ulcers and want to try a toothpaste without SLS, look at the “foaming agent” (発泡剤) and “cleaning agent” (洗浄剤) fields on the label. Shabondama Soap’s “Soap Toothpaste” (せっけんハミガキ) has soap base (石ケン素地) as its cleaning agent and contains no sodium lauryl sulfate (ラウリル硫酸Na).

Breathing: sprays and disinfectants

In a survey across 10 European countries, among people who used spray detergents at home at least once a week, new asthma symptoms or medication use occurred 1.49 times as often, and doctor-diagnosed asthma 2.11 times as often among those using them at least 4 days a week. No association was seen with non-spray detergents (Zock 2007). It is not known which ingredient is responsible.

For cationic surfactants in disinfectants (quaternary ammonium salts), there are case reports and surveys suggesting a link with asthma among health care workers. On the other hand, a large follow-up study of nurses in the US found no association with asthma (though there was one with COPD), so the results are inconsistent.

Emulsifiers in food and the gut

Some of the emulsifiers in food are also surfactants.

• In a 2015 study in Nature, mice given drinking water containing 1% of the emulsifier polysorbate 80 (a surfactant) or carboxymethylcellulose (CMC, a thickener, not a surfactant) for 12 weeks developed mild intestinal inflammation and obesity (Chassaing 2015)
• In people, there is a small trial comparing 7 people who took 15 g of CMC a day for 11 days (14 days for the first 3 people) with 9 who did not; the diversity of gut bacteria dropped (Chassaing 2022). We found no trial that gave polysorbate 80 to people
• In a follow-up study of about 100,000 people in France (NutriNet-Santé), links have been reported between emulsifier intake and cardiovascular disease, cancer, and type 2 diabetes. However, this is an observational study and does not show that emulsifiers cause disease. Also, the “emulsifiers” in this study include things that are not surfactants, such as CMC, carrageenan, and guar gum, and polysorbate 80 was eaten by few people and was not examined individually

Does it “enter through the skin and build up in the body”?

The WHO/IPCS assessment says that LAS and others “seem to be absorbed only very slightly through intact skin” and that what is absorbed is metabolized and excreted. It also says that long contact can damage the skin barrier and increase absorption. The details are in the article on transdermal toxins and household products.

Treatment in Japan and abroad: is anything banned?

To put the bottom line first, among the countries we checked (Japan, the EU, the US, and Canada), none bans “surfactants” as a whole. Regulation is decided by “which substance,” “for what use,” and “at what concentration.”

A short note on the reason for each.

• EU biodegradability: Based on its experience with foam on rivers in the 1950s and 60s, the EU requires the surfactants used in detergents to be “ultimately biodegradable.” Those that do not meet this cannot be used in detergents, so they are in effect shut out. The new regulation promulgated in March 2026 (2026/405) extends the biodegradability requirement to the film of detergent capsules and the like
• Nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPE): These are nonionic surfactants that break down in the environment into nonylphenol. Nonylphenol is highly toxic to fish and others, and hormone-disrupting effects have been reported in fish. In 2012, Japan added nonylphenol to its environmental standards for protecting aquatic life
• Fluorinated types: They are part of the “PFAS” that do not break down and accumulate in the body and the environment. For the story of frying pan coatings, see the article on Teflon coating
• POE tallowamine: In 2015, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) said it was “more toxic than glyphosate in every item examined” and that the data on human poisoning from herbicides could possibly be explained by this adjuvant
• 1,4-Dioxane: A substance that can be mixed in a little as a by-product when making surfactants to which ethylene oxide has been added, such as sodium laureth sulfate (SLES) (it is not an ingredient put in on purpose). IARC classifies it as 2B
• Allowable amounts of emulsifiers in food: The acceptable daily intake (ADI) for polysorbates is 10 mg per kg of body weight in the Food Safety Commission of Japan’s draft assessment and 25 mg in EFSA’s, because the studies they relied on differ

Tap water quality standards include limits to prevent foaming: anionic surfactants at 0.2 mg/L or less and nonionic surfactants at 0.02 mg/L or less.

Environment: what is the state of foam on rivers now?

• In March 2013, Japan added LAS to its “environmental standards for the conservation of aquatic life.” The limits are 0.03 mg/L or less for river and lake waters where char and salmon live, and 0.05 mg/L or less for waters where carp and crucian carp live, and so on. In fiscal 2023, the achievement rate was 100% for rivers, lakes, and seas
• At a sewage treatment plant in Kitakyushu City (measured in December 2021), LAS in the incoming water was 0.5 to 1.3 mg/L, and in the treated water discharged it was about 0.001 to 0.002 mg/L
• Soap is also toxic to aquatic life (the 1 to 10 mg/L band in the table above). It is sometimes pointed out that “soap is used in larger amounts and puts a heavier organic load on rivers,” but we could not confirm official comparison data

The new coronavirus and surfactants

In 2020, a committee of NITE (National Institute of Technology and Evaluation) and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry judged, based on tests by the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and others, that 9 types of surfactants in household detergents are effective for disinfecting objects against the new coronavirus.

There are also points to note.

• The target is objects; use as a spray on hands, skin, or in the air was not examined. Also, safety was not evaluated
• Sodium alkyl ether sulfate (AES) and alkyl betaine up to 0.5%, and fatty acid alkanolamide up to 0.2%, were “not judged effective”
• The committee included officers of an industry group (the Japan Soap and Detergent Association) as members
• The list of products containing effective surfactants stopped being updated at the end of October 2021

The words “additive-free,” “plant-derived,” and “amino acid type”

• For cosmetics advertising, the Japan Cosmetic Industry Association’s guideline (a voluntary industry standard) says that for “additive-free” (無添加), you should state what has not been added, and not emphasize it. It also gives as an example of unusable wording phrases that guarantee safety, such as “safe even for sensitive skin”
• Detergents (as miscellaneous goods) are not covered by the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Act; the Household Goods Quality Labeling Act and the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations apply. In April 2021, the Consumer Affairs Agency issued a cease-and-desist order under the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations to the seller of the laundry product “Sentaku Mag-chan” (洗たくマグちゃん), which claimed to wash without detergent. This was because no reasonable basis was shown for statements such as “weakly alkaline ionized water has a surface-active action that breaks down fats and oils, just like detergent”
• Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), sodium sesquicarbonate, and citric acid are alkalis or acids and are not surfactants

Points to check on the back label

1. Look at the product category (品名): “soap,” “composite soap,” or “synthetic detergent” tells you what the main cleaning ingredient is
2. Look at the “surfactant” (界面活性剤) field: for detergents, it gives the total content (%) and the names of the types included at 3% or more. For cosmetics, look near the start of the full ingredient list
3. “Plant-derived,” “amino acid type,” and “free of synthetic surfactants” are statements about raw materials or phrasing. They do not mean that no surfactant is included
4. If your hands are bothered, review how you use the product before the ingredients (gloves, rinsing, amount used). The guidelines also recommend gloves
5. If you have ever had contact dermatitis from a specific ingredient, remember its label name (cocamidopropyl betaine, decyl glucoside, and so on)
6. Keep pod-type detergents out of reach of children and older adults

Urayomi’s approach

Surfactants, soap included, are useful substances that link water and oil. By the same token, they also remove the oils of the skin, and at high concentrations they injure the eyes and mouth. This is the same for soap and for synthetic types.

On the other hand, when you look into claims such as “synthetic surfactants are dangerous” and “they are banned overseas,” they are often about regulation of specific substances (such as NPE and PFAS) for specific uses, and the main surfactants in familiar detergents (LAS, AES, AE, soap, and so on) are not banned as a group.

Urayomi does not decide which is “safe” or “dangerous.” It lays out what is written on the back label and what is known about it.

Summary

Featured	What kind of product	Link
Shabondama Snowl, bottle 1000 mL	Laundry soap (pure soap content 30%)	See on Rakuten (シャボン玉石けん公式) PR See on Amazon.co.jp PR See on Yahoo! Shopping PR
Eco Depa Japan	Online shop for eco goods carrying Miyoshi and Shabondama soaps	エコロジー雑貨のオンラインショップ　エコデパジャパン PR
Saraya Yashinomi dish detergent, bottle 500 mL	Synthetic dish detergent (16% surfactants), unscented and uncolored	See on Rakuten (サラヤ公式) PR See on Amazon.co.jp PR See on Yahoo! Shopping PR
All things in Nature laundry detergent	Synthetic laundry detergent (16% surfactants, plant-derived)	100%植物由来の洗浄成分!！湘南生まれの洗剤【All things in Nature】 PR
Showa Glove Nice Hand Mu, medium-thick, M	Household gloves (vinyl chloride)	See on Rakuten (スグル屋本舗) PR See on Amazon.co.jp PR See on Yahoo! Shopping PR
Shabondama Soap Toothpaste (せっけんハミガキ) 140 g	Toothpaste whose cleaning agent is soap base	See on Rakuten (シャボン玉石けん公式) PR See on Amazon.co.jp PR See on Yahoo! Shopping PR
『図解入門 よくわかる最新 界面活性剤の基本と仕組み』	An introductory book on surfactants (Katsuhiro Saito, Shuwa System)	See on Rakuten (楽天ブックス) PR See on Amazon.co.jp PR

Sources

Official bodies and laws

• Consumer Affairs Agency, “Miscellaneous Industrial Goods Quality Labeling Regulations (No. 27: synthetic detergents, laundry or dish soaps, and cleaning agents for housing or furniture)”
• Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), “Production Dynamics Statistics, Chemical Industry Statistics” (e-Stat, 2003 to 2025)
• Ministry of the Environment, “Fiscal 2023 PRTR Estimation Method for Non-Notified Emissions, Reference 7: Emissions from Cleaning Agents, Cosmetics, and the Like” and “Overview of Fiscal 2023 PRTR Data” (2025)
• Ministry of the Environment, “Addition of Items to the Water Quality Environmental Standards for the Conservation of Aquatic Life” (2013), “Fiscal 2023 Results of Water Quality Measurements in Public Water Areas” (2025), the revision of the CSCL Enforcement Order (NPE, 2024), and “Q&A Collection on PFOS and PFOA” (2024)
• NITE (National Institute of Technology and Evaluation), “Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Alternative Disinfection Methods against the New Coronavirus (Final Report)” (2020) and “Current Status and Future Direction of Risk Management of Nonylphenol and Nonylphenol Ethoxylates” (2004)
• Consumer Affairs Agency and the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan, “Watch Out for Pod-Type Liquid Laundry Detergents!” (2015); the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan, “Accidents from Pod-Type Liquid Laundry Detergents Do Not Stop” (2024); Consumer Affairs Agency, “On the Cease-and-Desist Order under the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations against Miyamoto Seisakusho Co., Ltd.” (2021)
• Japan Poison Information Center, “2024 Annual Report on Inquiries Received”
• Japanese Dermatological Association, “Guidelines for the Management of Hand Eczema” (2018)
• MHLW, “Ministerial Ordinance on Water Quality Standards,” “Standards for Cosmetics,” and “On the Handling of Medicated Soaps” (2016)
• Food Safety Commission of Japan, “Draft Assessment of Polysorbates” (2007)
• Shiga Prefecture, “What Is Biwako Day?” and “Shiga Prefecture Ordinance on Preventing Eutrophication of Lake Biwa”
• Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment (Germany), explanation of the “Detergent Act”
• WHO/IPCS, “Environmental Health Criteria 169: Linear alkylbenzene sulfonates and related compounds” (1996)
• International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), list of classifications
• Danish Environmental Protection Agency, “Environmental Project No. 615” (2001)
• EU regulations 648/2004 and 2026/405 (detergents), Directive 2003/53/EC and Regulations 2016/26 and 2017/999 (NPE), Regulation 1297/2014 (pod-type detergents), Implementing Regulation 2016/1313 and Regulation 2021/383 (co-formulants in pesticides), Regulation 2025/1988 (fire-fighting foam), Cosmetics Regulation 1223/2009 and Regulation 866/2014
• EFSA (European Food Safety Authority), re-evaluations of polysorbates (2015), lecithins (2017), and E471 (2017)
• New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, “1,4-Dioxane Limits”; the US FDA final rule on antibacterial soaps (2016); California OEHHA (Proposition 65)
• Stockholm Convention Secretariat, “The new POPs”

Papers

• Fujiwara T et al. Lancet 1980 (artificial surfactant); Obladen M. Biol Neonate 2005; Avery ME, Mead J 1959; Arima K et al. 1968 (surfactin)
• Löffler H, Happle R. Contact Dermatitis 2003; Nicander I et al. Skin Res Technol 2003; Hall-Manning TJ et al. Food Chem Toxicol 1998; Wilhelm KP et al. J Invest Dermatol 1993; Effendy I, Maibach HI. Contact Dermatitis 1995; Goffin V et al. 1995; Ward RK et al. 1998
• Tupker RA et al. Contact Dermatitis 1997 (guidelines for SLS tests); Forkel S et al. Contact Dermatitis 2026
• Jacob SE, Amini S. Dermatitis 2008; Fowler JF et al. Dermatitis 2015; Sasseville D. Dermatitis 2017; Warshaw EM et al. J Am Acad Dermatol 2022
• Valdez AL et al. Pediatrics 2014 (pod-type detergent accidents in the US)
• Alli BY et al. J Oral Pathol Med 2019; Shim YJ et al. Oral Dis 2012; Healy CM et al. Oral Dis 1999
• Zock JP et al. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2007; Dumas O et al. Am J Ind Med 2020 and JAMA Netw Open 2019
• Chassaing B et al. Nature 2015 and Gastroenterology 2022; Sellem L et al. BMJ 2023 and PLoS Med 2024; Salame C et al. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol 2024
• CIR, “Final Report on the Safety Assessment of Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate,” 1983 (the CIR is an assessment body funded by the industry group)

Industry groups and makers

• Japan Soap and Detergent Association (JSDA), “What Are Surfactants?”, “Detergent Memo Sheets (History of Products; Detergents and the Law),” “From the Origins of Soap to Its Arrival in Japan,” “History,” and “Trends in Detergent Sales”
• Japan Cosmetic Industry Association, “Guidelines for Proper Advertising of Cosmetics and the Like,” 2020 edition
• Kao, “History of Products” and the ingredient information for Attack ZERO, CuCute, and Humming
• Science History Institute, “Making the Process”