No, Those Aren't Shards Of Glass In Your Huggies Wipes

A mother posted a video to Facebook four days ago, claiming she found shards of glass covering her Huggies wipes. The video shows Melissa Estrella running her hands over the “shards of glass” while becoming audibly upset and “heartbroken” that she didn’t “notice this sooner.”

“All we have to do is wipe and glass comes off. Glass comes right off,” she claims as she smoothes her hands over the wipes repeatedly. The video has been shared over seven million times on Facebook and is a PR nightmare for Huggies. They are individually responding to claims from irate parents on their Facebook page.

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Huggies claims there’s an explanation for the shimmery objects that appear on the wipes, but parents are not satisfied. From Huggies’ FAQ page:

Is there glass in your Huggies wipes?

No, we do not use glass in the manufacture of our wipes. Generally speaking, we make our product by combining a blend of fibers. Rarely, but on occasion, when those fibers combine together while being formed, they create a shiny particle, similar to what was found by this consumer.

Huggies insists that the components in their wipes have been thoroughly tested and have been “safely used in all wipes for many years.” They will not be issuing a recall because they claim “no babies have been injured” and the wipes “pose no health risk to babies.”

There are currently over 6,000 comments on the Huggies Facebook update addressing the viral glass-shard video. Huggies is responding to every one. Most of the comments are from people who are pissed that they’ve called customer service and have been put on hold. Well, maybe that’s because thousands of other concerned parents are calling Huggies, too. The other bulk of the comments are from parents who claim they’ve been using Huggies wipes and the wipes have given their child a horrible rash. So stop using them. My children both have incredibly sensitive skin and it took me a lot of trial and error to find products that didn’t irritate them.

Have you ever run your fingers over tiny shards of glass? I have. It hurts. They stick in your hand. You bleed. I’m not a genius or a scientist, but I can say with some confidence that if these were tiny shards of glass and parents all over the land were finding them in their wipes – there would be blood. There would be pain. And Huggies would’ve pulled them off the shelves immediately. They aren’t, because there’s no glass in these wipes. But at this point, it doesn’t even matter that there’s no glass in the wipes. Enough people believe that there are.

An Instagram user pointed out that sodium methylparaben is the fourth ingredient on a package of Huggies Natural Care Wipes. That’s disturbing and misleading, because people who seek out “natural” products generally aren’t expecting things like chemical preservatives in them. Here’s an image of the paraben. You may notice it looks very similar to the shimmery objects people are finding on the wipes:

If whatever is causing this shimmery reaction in the wipes is harmful for children, that needs to be researched and resolved. If there’s a component in the wipe that doesn’t have an adequate shelf life or isn’t responding to changes in temperature correctly and may be causing allergic reactions – parents should be concerned about that, of course. But sharing videos that create mass hysteria about “glass shards” in wipes isn’t doing anyone any good.

Except maybe Estrella, who says on her Facebook page, “I’ll be filing a lawsuit here real soon. They just called me back asking me to send ALL MY WIPES BACK. I said I’ll send you a sample but I’ll need the rest for evidence !!!!!”