Key takeaways
- What they are: VOCs are chemicals that evaporate at room temperature, so they leave the bottle and enter the air you breathe.
- Where they are: conventional cleaners, and plenty of “green” ones too — plus air fresheners, scented candles and disinfectant wipes.
- What they do: irritation, headaches and dizziness now; weekly spray use is linked to a 49% higher risk of asthma, and cancer risk over years.
- How long they last: days, weeks or months in the air of a poorly ventilated room, long after the smell has gone.
- What to do: choose fragrance-free, avoid sprays, ventilate while you clean and afterwards.
- 193 hazardous VOCs detected across 30 common cleaning products
- 2,458 µg/m³ median total VOC concentration measured in that study
- 10× how much more polluted indoor air can be than the air outside
What are VOCs?
Chemicals that evaporate at room temperature — so they do not stay in the bottle, they end up in your lungs.
Volatile organic compounds are found in a great many household products. They turn from liquid into an invisible gas without any heat, any warning and any way of seeing it happen, and they change the quality of the air inside your home.
What “volatile” and “organic” actually mean
Both words are doing something different from what most people assume, and the second one is actively misleading.
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Volatile
The chemical evaporates easily, turning from a liquid into an invisible gas at ordinary room temperature. That “fresh” smell after cleaning is, in large part, VOCs in the air around you.
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Organic
Here it has nothing to do with being natural or safe. It is a chemist’s word describing the structure of the molecule — carbon-based. Do not let the word reassure you: many organic chemicals are extremely toxic.
Where VOCs are hiding in your home
A study published in Chemosphere analysed 30 common cleaning products and detected 193 hazardous VOCs, at a median total concentration of 2,458 µg/m³. Every time those products are used, thousands of chemicals are released into the air of the room and onto the surface that has just been wiped.
And they do not simply disappear afterwards. They can stay in a home for days, weeks or months — so a kitchen or bathroom cleaned every week is a room where this is accumulating, in the air and in the people breathing it.
The usual sources
- Bleach-based cleaners
- Disinfecting wipes and sprays
- Air fresheners and scented candles
- Multi-surface cleaners
- Dish soaps and detergents
The ten most dangerous VOCs in household products
Check the ingredients on what you own. If you find one of these, the bottle is not worth keeping — your health is worth more than the £3 you spent on it.
| Chemical | Usually found in | What it is linked to |
|---|---|---|
| Formaldehyde | Disinfectants, air fresheners, some detergents | Known carcinogen, linked to lung cancer |
| Benzene | Detergents and polishes | Leukaemia and other blood disorders |
| Toluene | Multi-surface cleaners, stain removers | Neurological damage with prolonged exposure |
| Chloroform | Emitted by bleach-based cleaners | Liver damage and cancer |
| 1,4-Dioxane | Some “green” detergents | Probable human carcinogen; fertility problems |
| Acetaldehyde | Scented products | Eye, skin and respiratory irritation; possible carcinogen |
| Ethylene glycol | Glass cleaners | Central nervous system damage |
| Methylene chloride | Some degreasers | Lung and liver damage, raised cancer risk |
| Styrene | Polishes and adhesives | Hearing loss, nervous system effects, cancer |
| Limonene | Citrus fragrance in all sorts of cleaners | Reacts with ozone indoors to form formaldehyde |
Sources: American Lung Association and Air concentrations of VOCs from conventional and green cleaning products.
These are not obscure industrial chemicals. They are in the cupboard under the sink in most homes in London — including, before we knew better, ours.
How to tell whether your products contain VOCs
The honest answer is that labels make it hard on purpose: manufacturers are not required to list every ingredient. There are still three things you can read.
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The signal words
POISON, DANGER or WARNING on a label means the contents are toxic to people and animals. CAUTION is a step down, but it is still a warning, not a reassurance.
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The ingredients list, where there is one
A product that publishes its full ingredients is already telling you something. Look for the ten in the table above, and treat “parfum” or “fragrance” as a single word hiding a list of dozens.
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The absence of a smell
Fragrance-free products generally carry far fewer VOCs. It is the single most reliable shortcut on a supermarket shelf.
The myth that clean has a smell
A strong scent means a clean room
It is what we were all brought up on: lemon means the kitchen is clean, pine means the floor is done.
Clean does not have a smell
A fragrance is a blend of hundreds of chemicals, some hazardous in small amounts, capable of affecting the nervous, respiratory, immune and endocrine systems. “Natural” scents are not exempt.
This is the hardest part of eco cleaning to get used to, and we say it to clients often: when we leave, the room should smell of nothing at all. That is what finished work smells like. The products we use are chosen on that basis.
What VOC exposure does to your health
A study reported by the Environmental Working Group found women using conventional cleaners such as bleach and disinfecting wipes had up to 193 hazardous VOCs in their breathing zone, with some chemicals still in the air weeks after the cleaning was done.
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In the short term
Irritation of the eyes, nose and throat. Headaches and dizziness. Nausea and fatigue — the heavy-headed feeling after an afternoon of cleaning that most people put down to the effort.
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Over years
Asthma and respiratory disease, hormonal and endocrine disruption, reproductive problems, and a raised risk of cancers including leukaemia and lung cancer.
The four long-term risks in detail
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Asthma and respiratory disease
A study that followed 3,503 adults with no asthma at the start found that using cleaning sprays as little as once a week was linked to a 49% higher risk of developing asthma symptoms or needing asthma medication. Air-freshening sprays carried the highest risk of any product measured, at 71%. On those numbers, roughly one in seven cases of adult asthma could be attributed to common household sprays.
European Community Respiratory Health Survey (Zock et al., American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 2007), as reviewed in CMAJ, 2020
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COPD, for people who clean often
Among US nurses using disinfectants weekly, the risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was 35% higher than for colleagues who did not. Bleach and quaternary ammonium compounds were among the worst.
Dumas et al., JAMA Network Open, 2019
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Hormonal and endocrine disruption
Compounds such as phthalates, common in fragrance, interfere with the body’s hormone signalling and are linked to reproductive problems.
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Reproductive health
1,4-dioxane, which turns up even in some products sold as green, has been associated with fertility problems.
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Cancer risk
Long-term exposure to formaldehyde and benzene in particular is linked to leukaemia, lung cancer and liver damage. This is cumulative — it is about years of small doses, not one bad afternoon.
The number that changed how we work
Indoor air can be up to ten times more polluted than the air outside — and VOC levels can spike to a thousand times higher during cleaning itself.
US Environmental Protection Agency, Volatile organic compounds’ impact on indoor air quality
What this looks like when it goes wrong
Two reported cases, because the risk is not only the slow kind.
A 20% rise in poisonings
In the early months of 2020, poison control centres reported a 20% increase in emergencies involving household cleaners — children swallowing hand sanitiser, and adults in respiratory distress after mixing products that should never be combined.
Reported by University Health
Chemical burns from a laundry capsule
A mother in Lancashire found her 11-month-old son with severe burns to his arm after contact with an undissolved laundry detergent pod — a reminder of what these concentrations do to skin, and of how they need to be stored.
Reported by The Sun
Ventilation, careful storage and never mixing products are the basics. Choosing less hazardous products in the first place is the part that removes the risk instead of managing it.
How to protect yourself, starting today
None of this requires throwing out everything you own this afternoon. Five habits do most of the work.
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Open a window
Ventilate while you clean and for a good while afterwards, not just until the smell fades.
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Stop spraying
A spray turns the product into an aerosol you breathe. Decant onto the cloth instead.
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Go fragrance-free
The single biggest reduction available on a supermarket shelf, and it costs nothing extra.
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Never mix products
Bleach with anything acidic or ammonia-based produces gas that sends people to hospital.
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Drop the air fresheners
Plug-ins and scented candles add VOCs continuously while cleaning nothing at all.
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Filter, if you filter
Only an activated carbon filter touches VOCs. HEPA alone catches particles, not gases.
And if you would rather not audit a cupboard full of bottles, that is fair enough — it is what we do for a living. Here is the full case for eco cleaning, and what it changes in a home.
Questions we are asked
What are VOCs in cleaning products?
Volatile organic compounds are chemicals that evaporate into the air at room temperature. In cleaning products they are what you smell during and after a clean, and they are what makes indoor air quality worse while you are trying to make the room cleaner.
Are green cleaning products completely safe?
Not always. They generally emit far fewer VOCs than conventional products, but a fragranced green product can still release harmful chemicals. Fragrance-free is the safer choice, whatever the front of the bottle says.
How long do VOCs stay in the air after cleaning?
Days, weeks, or even months, especially in a poorly ventilated room. They do not simply vanish when the smell fades.
Do air purifiers remove VOCs?
Only the right ones. A HEPA filter catches particles, not gases. For VOCs you need a purifier with an activated carbon filter, and it works best alongside ventilation rather than instead of it.
Is “unscented” the same as “fragrance-free”?
No, and the difference matters. Fragrance-free means no fragrance chemicals were added. Unscented often means masking fragrances were added to cover the smell of the other ingredients, so the product can carry more fragrance chemistry, not less.
How can I reduce VOC exposure when I clean?
Open a window and keep it open afterwards, choose fragrance-free products, pour or wipe rather than spray so the chemicals do not become an aerosol you breathe, never mix products, and skip air fresheners and scented candles, which add VOCs without cleaning anything.
The bottom line
VOCs are an invisible risk in products most households use every week. Conventional cleaners carry the most of it, and green ones are not automatically free of it either — the fragrance is usually where it hides.
Knowing what to look for is most of the battle. Read the label, skip the scent, open the window.
Ready to breathe cleaner air?
Book an eco-friendly clean and find out what a home smells like when it is genuinely clean: of nothing at all.
Book a regular home clean, a one-off deep clean or an end of tenancy clean.