Restricted Substances
At Nikwax we make products designed to be used in the home, where cross contamination of food and
air is a real possibility. That is why we take such care to select only ingredients which we know to be safe, and
avoid chemicals which pose a potential risk to human and environmental health.
All our aftercare products are manufactured in the UK, so our use of chemicals is regulated by the European REACH
Legislation. But, as with many environmental issues, we feel the Law does not always go far enough, and can be slow
to react to new information. In addition to compliance with the chemical restrictions defined by REACH, our own team of scientists, has developed a stricter list based on a precautionary approach. The Nikwax Manufacturing Restricted Substances List (MRSL) adopts the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) MRSL and all known per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS or otherwise known as PFCs) as identified by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
A copy of the Nikwax MRSL statement can be found here
Where there is concern over an ingredient’s safety within our formulations, we make our assessment by
reviewing the scientific papers for ourselves. We maintain a healthy suspicion of studies carried out internally by
large chemical companies, since their impartiality cannot always be guaranteed. To find out more about how we
approach chemical safety, visit our Philosophy and Principles page.
Our compliance with both REACH, and our own RSL, is audited regularly as part of our ISO certificated Integrated Management System. Our ISO auditor is the British Standards Institution.