Clorox Manufacturing Company of Puerto Rico is recalling about 6.3 million bottles of scented Mistolin and Lestoil multi-purpose cleaners because they may contain Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterium that can cause serious infections in people with weakened immune systems. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall on September 3, covering bottles sold only in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
No injuries had been reported as of the recall notice, but the affected products were sold widely enough — at Walmart, Sam’s Club, Costco, Supermercados Econo, Supermercados Selecto and other major retailers — that the agency is asking anyone who bought the cleaners in the past year to check their bottles rather than assume the recall does not apply to them.
Nine scents across two brands carry the same contamination risk
The recall covers scented Mistolin Dilutable Cleaners in nine varieties — Alegra tu Día, Espíritu Play, Flores de Primavera, Fresco Despertar, Frescura de Lavanda, Frescura Tropical, Manzana y Canela, Pino y Especias and Sólo para Ti — along with scented Lestoil Heavy Duty Multi-Purpose Cleaners in four varieties: Energía del Yunque, Fuerza de Lavanda Tropical, Intenso Limón Boricua and Olas de Rincón, according to the CPSC’s recall notice. Only scented versions of the two brands are affected; unscented cleaners are not part of the recall. The bottles were sold in four sizes — 28, 40, 64 and 128 fluid ounces — for between $1.40 and $8, and carry date codes beginning with the prefix “PR01” followed by a five-digit number between 25091 and 26168, marking products manufactured between April 1, 2025, and June 17, 2026.
Consumers can find the date code printed on the side of the bottle and the 12-digit UPC code on the label. The CPSC is directing anyone with an affected bottle to stop using it immediately, register the product at a dedicated recall website with photos of both codes, and dispose of the bottle in its original container with household trash rather than pouring it down a drain.
A common environmental germ turns dangerous in the wrong host
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is not an exotic pathogen — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes it as a bacterium commonly found in ordinary soil and water that mostly causes trouble in healthcare settings, where it can trigger bloodstream, lung and urinary tract infections and resist many standard antibiotics, according to the CDC’s overview of the organism. In a healthy household, that same bacterium living in a cleaning bottle is unlikely to cause illness. The CPSC’s notice is explicit that people with healthy immune systems are usually not affected by exposure to the germ.
The risk concentrates in a narrower group: people with weakened immune systems, or with catheters, ports or other external medical devices, who face a real chance of serious infection if the bacteria enter the body through inhalation, the eyes, or a break in the skin. The CDC has separately estimated that multidrug-resistant strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa caused roughly 32,600 infections and 2,700 deaths among hospitalized patients nationwide in a single recent year, according to the agency’s antimicrobial resistance threat report — a reminder that the danger from this particular organism is not hypothetical even when a given recall produces zero reported injuries.
Refunds hinge on a date code, not proof of purchase
Clorox Puerto Rico is offering a full refund of the purchase price to consumers who kept their receipt, or a refund at the manufacturer’s suggested retail price to those who did not — a remedy the company can offer specifically because the recall traces contamination to a defined manufacturing window rather than a single bad batch. Consumers can reach the company toll-free at 855-215-5439 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern time, by email at [email protected], or through the recall registration site listed in the CPSC notice.
The recall is one of several the CPSC has processed this fall alongside unrelated hazards on window air conditioners, electric grills and cordless vacuum cleaners, underscoring that a manufacturing date window, not a specific store or region, is what determines whether an individual bottle is affected. Because the contamination risk is tied to when a bottle was filled rather than where it was purchased, a bottle bought recently at any of the listed retailers could still fall outside the recalled date range, and checking the printed code is the only way to know for certain.
A near-identical recall hit a different Clorox plant four years ago
This is not the first time Pseudomonas aeruginosa has forced Clorox to pull scented cleaners from shelves. In October 2022, the company recalled roughly 37 million bottles of Pine-Sol scented multi-surface cleaner made at a Forest Park, Georgia plant over the same bacterial contamination, using hazard language nearly identical to this year’s notice, according to CNN’s report on the 2022 recall. That earlier action also reported no confirmed injuries, and the company has not said publicly whether the two contamination events share a root cause in its manufacturing or quality-control process, even though both involved water-based scented formulas produced at different facilities years apart.
The household risk calculation in this recall depends less on how the product was purchased than on who might come into contact with the spray. A family member doing the cleaning may be in perfect health and still carry contaminated mist or residue into the room of someone who is not, a distinction Medical Daily highlighted in its coverage of the recall’s practical stakes for caregivers. That framing matters most for households managing chemotherapy, dialysis, organ transplants or recent surgery, where an otherwise healthy cleaner can become an unwitting carrier.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
More from Morning Overview
