I noticed the following warning in fine print on a container of “Clorox Disinfecting Wipes”:
Do not use as a diaper wipe or for personal cleansing.
I can just imagine the difficulty they had in trying to convey that particular bit of advice. The legal department is telling them that for liability reasons, they have to warn people not to wipe their asses with these things. But the corporate standards people are telling them they have to use approved euphemisms to talk about wiping your butt. What they came up with does not seem to satisfy either concern. Isn’t it inevitable that someone is going to use them for toilet paper, end up with severe chemical burns in the anal region, and then sue Clorox, claiming that the warning was too vague?
One wonders whether there are any people at all who are both stupid enough to wipe their butts with a Clorox-soaked towel and smart enough to understand what is meant by “personal cleansing”. The warning would be pointless for anyone else.
They really needed to word it like this:
In the name of all that is holy, DO NOT USE THESE THINGS TO WIPE YOUR ASS. For additional household cleaning tips, call toll-free, 1-800-CLOROXX.
/hijack/ Ever since I read Cecil’s column about germs and how when you wipe down the kitchen you’re just really spreading them around and making things worse, I use these wipes on all counters and surfaces. I’m wondering, are they really strong enough to disinfect a kitchen? Do they meet the criteria of 10% chlorine bleach and actually kill everything? Does anyone know? That column of Cecil’s really messed with me, now I’m almost OCD about germs. /endhijack/
Yes, there are people out there that do this sort of thing, and the warning goes completely unheeded by them. My ex sister-in-law has severe OCD and refuses to take her medication. She has been known to use a Clorox wipe to clean herself whenever she would leave someone else’s house (to rid herself of germs). She’d wipe down her face, neck, hands and arms. She kept a container of them in the glove compartment of her car.
She was also caught using them on her child’s skin (my neice) at one point, along with Lysol spray and bleach in the bathwater.
Needless to say, a custody battle is raging over my neice right now.
>Yes, there are people out there that do this sort of thing, and the warning goes completely unheeded by them.
Which may be a pretty reasonable thing for them to do. I have a Material Safety Data Sheet for Borden Skin Cream that says “avoid prolonged contact with the skin”. I have another for rubbing alcohol that says “in case of contact with the skin, see a physician.” And I am reading at the moment a box of Q-tips brand cotton swabs that says “If used to clean ears, stroke swab gently around the outer surface of the ear, without entering the ear canal.” The phrase “without entering the ear canal” is even in bold type. These things make me conclude that warnings on products may well be meaningless and silly, and we are pretty much still on our own to figure out what is safe - a shame, because it would be useful to have authoritative information printed on products about their safety.
Heh. I’ve seen somebody use my Clorox disinfecting wipes for “personal cleaning” (butt wiping) right in front of my face. He was a very stupid and disgusting person.
That’s nothing. You should see the MSDSs for things like water and sugar. I believe the MSDS for water includes the classic “If spilled on skin, dilute with water.”
I once bought a hot-dog-stand “tamale” in a paper wrapper. The warning on the side said, “Paper wrapping is not edible.” I’m thinking if you can read and understand the word “edible” you’re probably bright enough not to eat paper, yeah?
Clorox Disinfecting Wipes do not actually contain bleach. Well, I couldn’t swear that there isn’t a kind that has bleach, but I’ve got a container of them here and it says “BLEACH-FREE” right on the front. They are manufactured by the Clorox company but Clorox-brand bleach is not an ingredient. I think it’s within the realm of plausibility that a person of average intelligence might mistakenly think a wipe that looks like a baby wipe and says“BLEACH-FREE” on the front would be safe to use on skin, so I don’t think the warning is all that stupid.
They should also say somewhere on the label that they are for disinfecting ONLY and won’t actually clean anything. I bought a box thinking they would be handy to clean the bathroom, instead of using the cleaning supplies that are stored in the kitchen. But, they’re just Lysol on a kleenex.
This sort of warning is for the feeble-minded, and the lawyers. I’ve never had the urge to pop a packet of silica gel into my pie hole whilst unpacking a vcr, camera, or the like, but they’ve gotta tell me ‘Do Not Eat’.
[Samuel L. Jackson voice] Mmmm! That sure was tasty. Would you like some, Vincent? [/voice]
I own a tool called a Hilti™ gun. It uses gunpowder charges to fire carbide nails up to 3" long into concrete. Inside the carry case is a label advising: Do Not Cock Tool Against Hand. Why in the name of Og would you do that in the first place? I’ll keep my paws as they are, sans apertures. :rolleyes:
Yep. We just bought a woodstove to install in our living room. Among the warnings were (paraphrasing a bit): “This product becomes very hot with use. Do not allow children to climb on or in the woodstove when in use.”
Gee, there go all the neat hiding places for Hide & Seek…
J/k!