While shopping for a household cleaning product, I was shocked to see how dangerous most of the products are. According to their labels, the risks range from mild skin irritation up to “irreversible eye damage”. Ouch — these things sound more like what you’d find in a toxic waste dump than anything you’d bring into your home.

Eventually, I chose one of the cleaners that had only mild risks listed, and was in a fairly stable gel form — rather than a liquid that could get splashed around or spilled. And then it hit me: one of these brands really ought to play up the safety angle. They don’t even have to be “green”. In a market where everything else is highly toxic, simply positioning the product as “safer” than competing products (with some details to back it up) might be enough to earn significant market share.