About Bleach By Barbara Bird

Apr 21

ABOUT BLEACH

By Barbara Bird April 2025

Common household bleach is familiar to most everybody and trusted as a disinfectant.

It is effective against bacteria, yeast and mold and used in many pet care establishments as a safe option for disinfecting floors and surfaces. However, there are some things to know about bleach that might give you second thoughts about using it. Or at least teaching your salon staff some protocols for bleach use.

▪ Chemical Facts: Bleach is chlorine-based such as calcium hypochlorite (bleaching powder) and non chlorine (peroxidase-based).The active ingredient of chlorine bleach is chlorine hypochlorite.

▪ How is Bleach made? Sodium hypochlorite solutions are produced by percolating chlorine gas in controlled amounts through a solution of sodium hydroxide in water. When the reaction is completed, there is a 1% to 2% excess of sodium hydroxide present in the solution. The chlorine gas reacts with sodium hydroxide to yield sodium hypochlorite.

▪ Chlorine bleach is considered a Hazardous Substance. It has serious health effects.

▪ From SDS:

Hazards Identification

This chemical is considered hazardous by the 2012 OSHA Hazard Communication Standard (29 CFR 1910.1200). Danger. Causes severe skin burns and eye damage Causes serious eye damage.

Potential Health Effects

Eye Contact: Corrosive. May cause severe damage to eyes.

Skin Contact: May cause severe irritation to skin. Prolonged contact may cause burns to skin. Inhalation: Exposure to vapor or mist may irritate respiratory tract and cause coughing. Inhalation of high concentrations may cause pulmonary edema. Ingestion: Ingestion may cause burns to

gastrointestinal tract and respiratory tract, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.

▪ Long-term (chronic) effects: Long-term exposure to low levels of chlorine gas could cause permanent lung disease such as bronchitis and shortness of breath. It can also cause tooth corrosion. Long-term exposure is mostly found in the workplace. No cancer or reproductive effects have been reported from chronic exposure to chlorine.

▪ EWWW The Smell: Some people are highly sensitive to the strong odor of bleach and report nausea, tingling or burning of mouth and headaches.

▪ EWWW The Smell: Some people are highly sensitive to the strong odor of bleach and report nausea, tingling or burning of mouth and headaches. ▪ Bleach is more effective at killing germs

when diluted than when used straight out of the bottle.

▪ Bleach Dilution : Nearly every reference offered a different recommendation. They included: 1 Cup Bleach:1 gallon water; 9 parts water:1 part bleach; 1/3 cup bleach per gallon water, and 1/2 cup bleach in 1 gallon water. Take your pick. Given what we have learned about the loss of potency, I would suggest you use more bleach as your bleach ages in the bottle.

▪ Is your bleach fresh? Bleach is unstable. It begins to degrade soon after it is produced. This makes it less potent. The higher the temperature in storage, the faster it will degrade. Yes, bleach can be losing

potency while in the bottle at the supermarket or stored in your garage or under the sink. The decomposition rate is exponential, not linear, so a significant amount of the decomposition occurs in the first week after production. Sodium Hypochlorite solutions containing less than 7.5% available chlorine are the most stable.

▪ The factors that promote bleach decomposition are heat, light, soil, and metal ions (hard water).

▪ Bleach by itself does not remove dirt or soil (or urine & feces). An area that will be cleaned with bleach should be washed and rinsed first to remove any dirt or nasty stuff before using the bleach solution.

▪ Household Bleach: Bleach designed for use in the home is sold in retail and grocery stores. It is typically labeled somewhere in the range of 4-8% Sodium Hypochlorite, and is the only type of bleach appropriate for the average consumer to use at home. Due to the longer time (weeks? months?) from production to use by the customer, it is highly possible that bleach purchased in grocery stores is not necessarily as strong as is claimed on the label (see next section on bleach degradation). This is why we don’t buy bleach at the Dollar Store.

▪ Bleach is highly corrosive. "Bleach can drill a hole through stainless steel," says one expert, "that's why it's important to wipe down metal surfaces with water or ethanol after treating them with bleach." For

delicate metal instruments, consider avoiding bleach altogether and using a different kind of disinfectant, such as ethanol (alcohol).

▪ Medicated Shampoo with Bleach - Sodium Hypochlorite has been demonstrated as effective in treating antibiotic resistant skin infections in dogs. Vets have been known to prescribe weekly bleach rinses for dogs that have not been responsive to other treatments. It works. Now a medicated shampoo with sodium chlorite as an ingredient is available

hypochlorite and salicylic acid. We are sorry to see this available by internet search at Chewy.com, as requiring veterinary supervision would seem appropriate.

P.S. FABULOSO CLEANING PRODUCTS CONTAIN NO BLEACH. Just

Saying….The alarming story about a person dying from using Fabuloso was totally false. You can’t get much more false than “totally”.

REFERENCES:

Core Chem: Cleaning with Bleach: Here’s What You Need to Know, info@corechem.com

Michigan Department of Community Health, Bleach Fact Sheet, michigan.gov

Mika Ono, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Bleach But Were Afraid to Ask, Scripps Research Institute News & Views, Vol 6, Issue 5, February 13, 2006

Household Products Database. Now known as: consumer product information database

Valerie A. Fadok, Katherine Irwin, Sodium Hypochlorite/salicylic Acid Shampoo for Treatment of Canine Staphylococcal Pyoderma, J Am Anim Hosp Assoc. 2019 May/Jun, 55(3): 117-123. d

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30870602/

Barbara Bird

About Bleach By Barbara Bird

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