"Chemical"

The word "chemical" (both as a noun and an adjective) probably has the most misguided connotations a word can have. As all readers undoubtedly know, every actual substance, outside the realm of particle physics, is made of chemicals, yet (stereotypically) people persist in believing that "anything made of chemicals" must be dangerous. Sigh.

That being said, because of the word's awkward connotations, I don't like to use it in my papers. This makes things awkward, considering what kind of papers I usually write.

For example, I'd like to refer repeatedly to a set of chemicals I use in one of my reports, without listing the set out all the time. E.g. "Method consists of adding (series of chemicals) to (stuff)..."

A mathematician's solution: define set A := {chemical 1, chemical 2, ...}. Too bad the paper's audience won't appreciate that.

Well. I can say "Additives". "Reagents". "Substances". (If not "stuff".) Unfortunately, the three words mean slightly different things; the thesaurus is pretty useless in this regard. Now what?