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At Being Savvy you may have read tips and pointers for going green in your household or your community this month.

Here's a question: When you look at a label on a cleaning product, do you truly understand what you are reading as well as you do when reading a food label?

I just learned of a new application launched by Seventh Generation. Through research and  discussion they have discovered that manufacturers of consumer goods are not required to disclose ingredients unless they are of a certain toxicity. Additionally, many companies who list ingredients intentionally omit dangerous chemicals, falling back on intellectual property and confidentiality as the excuse. 

Seventh Generation worked in collaboration with its scientists to create a Label Reading Guide. This guide was created by purchasing every product in the cleaning aisle, including Seventh Generation's, and based on the information provided on the packaging, compiling a comprehensive database of ingredient definitions, uses, relations, and even commonly used (but hardly understood) terms.

The Label Reading Guide is available for desktop download, as Windows Vista gadget, and as a mobile application for web-enabled phones so you can use it at the store or from the comfort of your home. iPhone and Mac versions are coming soon. Click here for more information.

This is great news for all of us.

(Unless you are looking for a reason not to clean your house!)