You might have heard that Force of Nature is a tiny appliance that uses electricity to convert tap water, plus a little Capsule of salt, water & vinegar, into a multi-purpose cleaner as effective as bleach. It’s a chemistry change that’s happening, and they ingredients are changing into new ones, but what are they? We’ve got the details for you here.
Is Force of Nature Safe? The Scoop on Ingredients.
Force of Nature uses a technology called electrolyzed water, which is used in a wide range of industrial applications, for example in wound healing, eye care, and veterinary care products, and also in green cleaning & sanitizing. An electrical current changes the chemical composition of salt & water into 2 new ingredients:
- Hypochlorous acid (HOCl), the disinfecting ingredient as effective as bleach, and the same substance your immune system produces to fight infections.
- Sodium hydroxide (NaOH), the cleaner & degreaser, used at varying concentrations in products like toothpaste, skin moisturizers, and sunscreens, and in cleaning products. Force of Nature contains a tiny concentration of just 0.0000003% (not toxic). In all-purpose cleaners, typical concentration levels are from 1-5% (3 million to 17 million times the concentration as in Force of Nature).
Force of Nature Is Safe Around Children & Pets
Force of Nature is safe because it’s the only cleaner & deodorizer you can buy with no added fragrances, dyes, preservatives or surfactants, no skin or respiratory allergens or irritants. It has no harmful chemicals, residues or fumes, and earns the highest possible rating from Mayo Clinic’s Skin Safety Rating System. It’s so safe you don’t have to rinse it off baby gear like changing areas and toys, or off pet gear & toys. You can spray down your counters between the cracked eggs & baking mess and the upcoming art project mess without rinsing. And those stinky Crocs in the Summer, or those nasty smelling hockey gloves – spray those monsters and let Force of Nature work its magic with deodorizing – no rinsing needed.
Force of Nature is much safer than typical natural cleaning products. You might know that because there are no regulations dictating safety standards for products labeled “natural”, these cleaning products often contain ingredients linked to health risks ranging from cancer and endocrine disruption to asthma and respiratory toxicity. For example fragrances are linked to a shocking number of health risks including hormone disruption, asthma, allergies, neurotoxicity & cancer. And even so-called “natural fragrances” can be just as toxic as synthetic fragrances. That’s because there is no federal safety criteria for what a “natural fragrance” is. Two more ingredient types to watch for in “natural” cleaning products are preservatives and surfactants. Methylisothiazolinone (MIT) & methylchloroisothiazolinone (CMIT) are common preservatives in natural cleaners, and the health risks have caused their use to be restricted in Canada, the EU & Japan.
Safe on Virtually Any Surface
When people see that Force of Nature contains vinegar, they wonder if it’s safe to use on certain surfaces, especially stone. You might know you shouldn’t use vinegar on stone surfaces like granite, marble, limestone, onyx or travertine because it can etch and dull the shine on them. But due to the chemistry change, Force of Nature is safe to use on sealed stone. Another watch out for people cleaning with their homemade vinegar solutions is that vinegar can corrode surfaces like rubber gaskets (for example in dishwasher & laundry machines), window seals and unsealed grout, so those surfaces need to be rinsed after cleaning with vinegar. Force of Nature is safe to use on these surfaces without rinsing.
Our Capsules: The Key to Safety.
If you’re a stickler for detail, you might have noticed that when we talked about the use of electrolyzed water in the industrial space, we only mentioned salt and water, not vinegar. Good catch! In the industrial space, electrolyzed water is produced in big tanks and then used up shortly after being produced. That’s because hypochlorous acid starts to dissipate in a short amount of time, like bubbles in a carbonated drink, which means the solution begins to lose its potency. Families can’t make a new batch of cleaner every day, we have enough to do, right? So Force of Nature uses vinegar to create a solution with precisely the right pH, so that 2 things happen:
- the right concentration of hypochlorous acid is formed to be as effective as bleach
- the cleaner last a full 2 weeks
Now to the Capsules! You might be wondering why you need pre-measured Capsules. That’s because the chemistry is so sensitive that the EPA requires them. Getting the pH precisely right ensures that the right concentration of hypochlorous acid is created, because the wrong pH can result in bleach, a solution that doesn’t meet EPA-required standards, or a shorter shelf life.
Safe for Our Earth Too
Force of Nature is safe for our earth and oceans in a way that no other cleaner is. It’s Green Seal certified for environmental excellence. It has no toxic chemicals to go into our water systems, and no single-use plastic bottles. And, because it replaces bleach, kitchen, bathroom cleaners, deodorizers, rug & glass cleaners, you can eliminate all those plastic bottles too.
Learn More
We started Force of Nature because we don’t think parents should have to trade off what works with what’s safe for your family & the environment. When we learned about the electrolyzed water technology, we knew that if we could size it down for families’ counters (and budgets!), it would be the solution families were looking for. Learn more about how Force of Nature actually works or some surprising ways you can use it. If you’re someone who uses vinegar in your own DIY mix, you might be be surprised to learn that vinegar doesn’t disinfect and that vinegar can’t kill the viruses that can make your family sick. Or if you have more questions on how it compares to other cleaning products, we can help with that too.
