What’s the first thing that comes to mind when someone says the word “chemicals”?

If you are like other people, the image is rather unpleasant. One would think of a test tube bubbling and spilling. Another person would think of the news about a gas leak at a factory. Somewhere along the way, chemicals stopped meaning “product of chemistry” and started to mean “product of hazards”. We have started treating “chemical-free” as a badge of honour, as if such a thing were even possible. 

The honest, unfiltered answer to this is it isn't possible, not even slightly. 

Water, the substance our bodies are made of, is a chemical. The salt you sprinkle on your fries is a chemical. Your very own body is a machine, running on intrinsic, complex and constant streams of chemical reactions. Every heartbeat, every thought and every shiver in the cold is chemistry doing its quiet, invisible work. If the universe were a convenience store, it would have no aisle labelled “chemical-free”. Everything here is chemistry.

So then, the question arises – why so much fear around chemistry?

Somewhere down the line, “chemical” became a shorthand for “synthetic or unnatural", and one terrible mix-up made "synthetic equals harmful". Now, a point worth noticing is that nature has produced some of the deadliest substances known to science, while human ingenuity has produced some of the safest, life-saving ones. The label tells you nothing about the danger; the chemistry does.

Let's make this real with something sitting in almost every Indian bathroom right now.

The Bottle On Your Shelf

Observe the bottle of the disinfectant antiseptic liquid at your home, and you might see the small triumph of applied chemistry. The active ingredient, which enables it to clean wounds and disinfect surfaces, is a compound called chloroxylenol, known in the industry as 'PCMX'. It is the reason a few drops in water can turn into a household ritual trusted across generations. 

This molecule – chloroxylenol – has no care for marketing. By disrupting the cell walls of bacteria and stopping them in their tracks, it quietly carries out its work. One might call it 'magic' when it is just a molecule doing what its structure programmes it to do every single time. The fact that it's a “chemical” isn't the exception to its usefulness. That's the entire reason it's useful. 

The Invisible Shield

Now step outside, into the sun. 

Sunscreen emerges as the hero of endeavour, quietly doing its job. The real hero is the chemistry that took years and years to perfect for sunscreen to execute the job without any problems. Compounds like benzophenones and octyl methoxy cinnamate are built specifically to absorb harmful UV radiation before it reaches your skin and convert that energy into something harmless, like a tiny grain of heat, instead of letting it damage your cells.

This is worth pondering: the same UV rays that can cause sunburns, premature ageing and far more serious damage over time are intercepted by molecules engineered to take the hit so your skin doesn't have to. People hesitate; they think the ingredient list sounds too “chemical”. But these chemicals – which are designed, tested and understood at a molecular level – can do something natural ingredients cannot do instantly and reliably. 

A Pattern Worth Noticing

Pay slight attention, and you will notice this pattern everywhere. The preservatives that keep food from spoiling, the compounds in your toothpaste that keep cavities at bay and many more. The intermediates – the lesser-known, rarely discussed, but absolutely essential – that pharmaceutical companies use as building blocks for medicines that bring down a fever, fight an infection or manage a chronic illness for years. Long before a tablet is purchased off the pharmacy shelf, it begins its life as a series of carefully chosen chemical compounds, synthesised, purified and refined by people who understand exactly what they are doing and why. 

None of this is incidental. It is deliberate, tested and – when done well – remarkably elegant. Chemistry isn't the villain hiding behind the ingredient list. It is the reason the list works at all.

So, Are Chemicals "Bad"?

The question itself makes no sense. This is like asking, "Are letters bad?” It makes no sense. Letters form words which can be either kind or cruel. It is not the question of letters existing, but rather which ones you choose and how you arrange them. 

Chemicals are no different. The only things that matter are the chemical chosen, its purpose and its concentration. Molecules that disinfect and molecules that poison and kill both look “chemical” on paper. It is the chemistry – practised with rigour and purpose – which precisely tells the two apart. 

This is the lens we want to bring to this blog. Not chemistry as something to fear from a distance, but chemistry as something to understand – because once you understand it, a lot of that fear simply has nowhere left to stand. 

At N.S. Chemicals, this is the world we've spent years working in – manufacturing the very compounds behind the stories above. From antibacterials like chloroxylenol to UV filters like benzophenones and avobenzone, alongside the pharmaceutical intermediates that quietly become tomorrow's medicines. We don't just manufacture molecules. We think about what they make possible.

This is Chapter 1. There is a lot more curious chemistry where this came from – see you in Chapter 2.