Guide · 16 sections
A carrier, a marketplace or a customer has asked you for an SDS. They mean one specific document: sixteen numbered sections, in a fixed order, set by the Globally Harmonized System.
This page explains what belongs in each section and which published body the values come from. Nothing here is behind a form.
If you ship, sell or hand over a substance or mixture that carries a GHS hazard, someone downstream will ask for a sheet. Carriers ask before they move it. Marketplaces ask before a listing goes live. Employers ask because their staff handle it.
A finished consumer article often falls outside the requirement: a sealed candle, a bar of soap. The fragrance oil or the lye you bought to make it does not. The party asking you for the sheet decides, not us.
No. The label is what goes on the container: pictograms, signal word, H codes, P codes and the supplier identity. The sheet is the sixteen-section document behind it. Both are printed from the same classification, which is why they are usually produced together.
In most jurisdictions the supplier is responsible for the sheet being accurate; no licence is required to author it. That is why section 1 has to carry your company details and not ours. Where a jurisdiction requires a named competent person or a toxicologist to review, that review is yours to arrange.
Three things, in the order we see them. A classification copied from a similar product rather than derived from the actual composition. Toxicology numbers with no published origin. And a revision date old enough that the source classification has since changed.
The order is fixed and the numbering is part of the standard. The third column is who supplies the values.
The product name as it appears on the container, the recommended use, and the supplier's name, address, phone and 24-hour emergency number.
You. This section is your identity as the supplier, so nobody else can write it for you.
The GHS hazard class and category, the signal word, the pictograms, the H codes and the P codes. This is what a label is printed from.
The harmonised classification published under Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 and held in the ECHA C&L inventory, read through PubChem's GHS record.
Each hazardous component, its CAS number and its concentration or concentration range.
You, for the percentages. Us, for the CAS number and the identity of each component.
What to do after inhalation, skin or eye contact and ingestion, plus delayed symptoms and the note for the physician.
The ILO-WHO International Chemical Safety Cards and the Hazardous Substances Data Bank, where either has published a card for the substance.
Suitable and unsuitable extinguishing media, the specific hazards of combustion products, and advice for firefighters.
CAMEO Chemicals and the ICSC cards. For a mixture, the strictest advice among the components carries.
Personal precautions, environmental precautions and the containment and clean-up method.
CAMEO Chemicals and the ICSC cards, with a plain default where nothing substance-specific is published.
Precautions for safe handling, incompatibilities, and the storage conditions the substance requires.
The published reactivity and storage notes for each component, plus the P codes already in section 2.
Occupational exposure limits, engineering controls, and the eye, skin and respiratory protection.
The OSHA permissible exposure limits and the NIOSH recommended limits, both published as numbers with units.
Appearance, odour, pH, melting and boiling point, flash point, auto-ignition temperature, flammable limits, vapour pressure, density, solubility, log Kow and viscosity.
PubChem's experimental properties record, which names the original publisher for each value.
Chemical stability, conditions to avoid, incompatible materials and hazardous decomposition products.
Published reactivity records. Where nothing is published for a mixture, the sheet says so rather than generalising.
Routes of exposure, symptoms, and the acute toxicity values — LD50 oral, LD50 dermal, LC50 inhalation — with the species and the route stated.
Published toxicity records only. This is the section a language model will invent numbers for, so it is the one we refuse to fill without a source.
Aquatic and terrestrial toxicity, persistence and degradability, bioaccumulation and mobility in soil.
Published ecotoxicity records where they exist. Frequently thin for cosmetic and fragrance ingredients.
The waste treatment method and the handling of contaminated packaging.
The hazard classification, which decides the waste stream, plus published disposal notes where there are any.
The UN number, the proper shipping name, the transport hazard class, the packing group and the marine pollutant flag.
The published UN transport record for the substance. This is the section a carrier reads first.
The safety, health and environmental regulations specific to the substance in the jurisdiction the sheet is written for.
The regulatory listings published against the substance. Jurisdiction follows the address you enter.
The revision date, the version, an abbreviation key, and the disclaimer.
Generated. The revision date is the date the sheet was assembled, which is why a sheet is regenerated rather than edited.
Sections 1 to 10 are mostly a matter of reading the right record. Sections 11 and 12 are where the public record runs out: fragrance ingredients, cosmetic esters, most novel compounds. There a sheet either says so, or invents a number.
A general-purpose language model asked for an LD50 will produce a plausible figure with a plausible species and no origin. On our sheets a value with no published source prints as unsourced — inference candidate, and every sourced value carries the publisher and the date we read it.
Each of these pages is free, and shows the classification, physical data and toxicology we hold, with the source behind every value.
Type the product name, add the components with their percentages, enter your company details. You get the sheet and a print-ready GHS label as .docx and .pdf, each safety value with its source line.
Start a document — $5What it is not
Every document we produce is a draft for your review. It is not a regulatory submission, and it does not replace a qualified toxicologist where your jurisdiction requires one.
If a document comes back wrong, flag the field: we regenerate it free, or refund you. Your choice.