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Updated October 2026

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What this covers The workplace regime With a layout requirement The consumer regime instead So the buyer decides the regime And a third regime if it moves Where our shelf stops References

The same solvent in the same bottle carries a different label depending on who buys it.

What this covers

Acids, bases, solvents, coatings, lubricants, industrial adhesives and resins. Seven leaves, and for once the archetype is right about all of them: poured liquids where chemical resistance is the entire container decision.

The workplace regime

A container of hazardous chemicals leaving the workplace carries six specified elements: a product identifier, a signal word, hazard statements, pictograms, precautionary statements, and the name, address and telephone number of the responsible party.

With a layout requirement

The signal word, the hazard statements and the pictograms have to be located together on the label. That is unusual: a regulation specifying not only what appears but that three of the elements are grouped.

The consumer regime instead

Hazard communication does not apply to a consumer product or a hazardous substance as defined in the Consumer Product Safety Act and the Federal Hazardous Substances Act, when subject to a safety standard or labeling requirement under those Acts or CPSC regulations.

So the buyer decides the regime

Sell a solvent to a workshop and it is a hazardous chemical with a HazCom label. Sell the same solvent to a household in a consumer package and it is labeled under the FHSA instead. One liquid, one bottle, two sets of rules.

And a third regime if it moves

The label must not conflict with the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act and the DOT regulations under it. So the transport marking and the hazard label have to coexist on the same container.

Where our shelf stops

191 containers to 4,731 mL, which is about a gallon and a quarter. The archetype window runs to 20,000 mL and nothing here reaches a pail or a drum, and nothing carries a UN specification marking.

References

29 CFR 1910.1200(f), Labels and other forms of warning. Paragraph (f)(1) lists the six required elements on a shipped container: product identifier, signal word, hazard statements, pictograms, precautionary statements, and the name, address and telephone number of the responsible party. (f)(2) requires them to accord with Appendix C for each hazard class and category, prominently displayed and in English; (f)(3) requires the signal word, hazard statements and pictograms to be located together; (f)(5) requires the label not to conflict with the DOT transport rules. law.cornell.edu

29 CFR 1910.1200(b)(5), the scope exclusions, which take out a consumer product or hazardous substance as defined in the Consumer Product Safety Act and the Federal Hazardous Substances Act when subject to a safety standard or labeling requirement of those Acts or of CPSC regulations, and pesticide-treated agricultural or vegetable seed labeled under the Federal Seed Act. law.cornell.edu

16 CFR 1500.14, Products requiring special labeling under section 3(b) of the act, the Federal Hazardous Substances Act route for consumer products, which prescribes specific signal words and statements for named substances including petroleum distillates at 10 percent or more. law.cornell.edu

Written from federal regulation and from measured catalog data, not from a plant floor. Hazard classification is a technical exercise with appendices behind it, and nothing here classifies a chemical or writes a label. The point of these pages is to show which regime applies and what it asks for.