this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
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me_irl
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Isn't chloroform a known human carcinogen?
I've accidentally mixed those two ingredients together, very stupidly in my younger years, for misguided cleaning purposes and whatever that reaction is, it's nothing like ammonia and bleach, but it still set off my spidey senses enough to know I needed to get out of the area and never do it again.
It not a known carcinogen. It is in group 2B from the IARC, labeled as possibly carcinogenic. There is some evidence that it might cause cancer, but not enough to say with certainty.
The scale is based on levels of evidence, not severity. Group 1 known carcinogens includes many things from Plutonium to alcohol and processed meat. Rankings are by evidence, not dosage.
I've never understood this "let's mix two cleaning agents together to make them clean better!" thing. If that was the case, don't you think the manufacturers would sell this product pre-made?
Safety regulations and stuff.
Some of us lacked fully formed adult brains when we were kids and so we sometimes did stupid shit that humans with more fully developed and advanced brains wouldn't. Also, times were different decades ago. There was a time when we didn't have things like dish detergent with peroxide or tide with oxy clean, so sometimes we'd just add a drop of detergent to some peroxide to help it penetrate into fabric and better remove a blood stain or things like that.
That aside, "cleaning better" is hardly the only rationale for why I'll sometimes whip together a DIY cleaning product. I'm guessing I'm not alone in that. So I think focusing on that one rationale might be missing the bigger picture for peoples' motivations.