Cleaning products are the one category where you breathe the product

A cleaner lifts soil off a surface. A disinfectant kills a specified list of organisms, at a specified concentration, after sitting wet on the surface for a specified time — typically several minutes, which almost nobody actually waits. If you wipe a disinfectant off after thirty seconds, you have used a pesticide as a cleaner and got the exposure without the claim.

Disinfectants in the US are registered pesticides under FIFRA, which is why they carry an EPA registration number. Nearly half the products on EPA's List N use a quaternary ammonium compound as the active. Quats appear on the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics list of asthmagens, and the occupational evidence links exposure to rhinitis and asthma. That is not an argument for never disinfecting; it is an argument for disinfecting the bathroom after someone has been ill, and using soap the rest of the time.

• A full ingredient list, with function. Good brands publish every component and say what each does. If a formula is a trade secret, that is the brand's choice and your answer.
• "Fragrance" as a single word. Under FDA's cosmetic labeling rules a whole fragrance mixture can be declared as one word because formulas are treated as trade secrets. The same convention carries into household products. Unscented removes the question entirely.
• An EPA registration number — if present, the product is a registered pesticide. That is information, not a verdict.
• A dwell time. Only disinfectants have one. If the label specifies minutes, use the minutes or use a different product.
• Safer Choice or MADE SAFE — the two marks in this category that review the actual formula rather than the packaging.

Acetic acid dissolves mineral scale and cuts grease. Sodium bicarbonate is a mild abrasive and a deodorizer. Between them they handle a real share of household cleaning for almost no money, and they are the honest answer to half the "best non-toxic cleaner" searches.

What they do not do: disinfect. Vinegar is not an EPA-registered disinfectant and should not be used as one on a surface that matters. They also should not be mixed — combine an acid and a base and you get carbon dioxide, water and a sodium acetate solution weaker than either input. And vinegar should stay off natural stone, unsealed grout and cast iron, where the acid does real damage. The vinegar comparison covers where each wins.

Laundry detergent is where ingredient lists get shortest and most legible, because a powder does not need the preservatives, viscosity modifiers and solubilizers a liquid does. Several of the cleanest formulas available are four or five ingredients long, fully declared, and cheaper per load than the mainstream liquid. The trade-off is cold-water performance and a scoop instead of a pod.

The two things worth avoiding in laundry are optical brighteners, which are dyes engineered to stay on the fabric and fluoresce, and heavy fragrance, which stays on fabric by design and is the one scent you cannot walk away from. The laundry detergent picks and powder versus liquid go through both.