Chemical free is a term used in marketing to imply that a product is safe, healthy or environmentally friendly because it only contains natural ingredients. [1] The term is a misnomer, as all substances and objects are composed entirely of chemicals and energy. The term chemical is roughly a synonym for matter , and all substances, such as water and air, are chemicals.
The use of the term chemical free in advertising to indicate that a product is free of synthetic chemicals, and the tolerance of its use in this fashion by the United Kingdom's Advertising Standards Authority, has been the subject of criticism. [2]
A study on American undergraduates' understanding of the term chemical, conducted by chemist Gayle Nicoll in 1997, noted that "People may hold both a scientific and layman's definition of a chemical without linking the two together in any way. They may or may not consciously distinguish that the term 'chemical' has different connotations depending on the situation." [3]