Chapter 11: The supporting cast · Part 6: Stabilisers
Sodium stannate
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The worst fact: Australia's Poisons Standard lists it as a Schedule 5 Poison with only one exception: cosmetics with 1% or less. A quarter of the company reports to the EU that classify it say "Causes severe skin burns and eye damage".
Why brands use it: traces stop hydrogen peroxide breaking down in the bottle. One patent uses 0.006 to 0.035% of the peroxide's weight.
Take care if: it gets in your eyes.
Comes from: tin metal (sometimes tin scrap) reacted with caustic soda and an oxidiser such as sodium nitrate.
Myth check: no common myth we could source.
Contaminants: nil.
Fair to say: Australian hydrogen peroxide safety data sheets we checked say only "may contain stabiliser" and never name it, so we found no household product that lists sodium stannate. Inorganic tin usually enters and leaves the body quickly and is "not known to cause cancer". The US EPA's Safer Choice list allows it only as an oxidant stabiliser, such as for peroxide (yellow triangle).
Correct as of November 2026. What the badges mean
Sources
- Australian Government. Poisons Standard October 2026 (SUSMP), F2026L01327: boric acid; sodium stannate; formic acid; Appendix B (dimeticone).
- ATSDR. Toxicological profile for tin (2005).
The full source list is at the end of Chapter 11.