Best Sustainable Body Washes

To identify more eco-friendly and cleaner options, CR partnered with Made Safe and Made Wise, experts on screening products for health and sustainability, to analyze the ingredients lists for over 100 body washes. While 27 body washes made our list of Top Choices and 27 made our list of Good Choices, the majority of body washes we analyzed posed potential or known risks for human health or the environment, which we explain in more detail below. Click ingredient risks for more details.

When you lather up in the shower, you may never have considered where those suds end up after they swish down the drain. For most of us, when the tap turns off and the water heads down the drain, that’s as much thought as we give it.

But after water leaves our homes, taking with it chemicals like those from personal care products, it typically enters the sewer and then a wastewater treatment plant, where solids, biological matter, and some contaminants are removed through physical and chemical treatment. Then the post-treatment wastewater is typically released into a body of water like a river or lake.

Choose biodegradable formulas. Biodegradable ingredients can break down faster in the environment, where they may end up after processing at a wastewater treatment plant. A faster breakdown means less time to linger, and consequently, potentially less impact on the environment. However, since spotting biodegradable surfactants, fragrances, and colorants on an ingredients list isn’t realistic for most of us without an advanced degree in chemistry, your best bet is to shop for products that are formulated to be biodegradable. 

Look for products that state their formulas are 100 percent or nearly 100 percent biodegradable—third-party certifications are another good sign to look for as well. 

Choose fragrance-free or ingredient transparency. Federal laws don’t require companies to list fragrance ingredients on labels. Rather, companies can use umbrella terms like “fragrance” and “perfume” on labels, which can hide dozens of undisclosed ingredients, some of which are linked to allergies, reproductive toxicity, or interference with hormones, and they could build up in our bodies or the environment. To avoid unknown risk, choose fragrance-free products, or support companies that list all fragrance ingredients. Avoid products with generic terms like “fragrance” on the label.

Skip ethoxylated surfactants and ingredients. These ingredients can carry 1,4-dioxane and ethylene oxide, two manufacturing contaminants that aren’t listed on labels and are associated with some cancers. To spot them on ingredients lists, you’ll have to do a little detective work, looking for and avoiding the suffixes “-eth” (as in “laureth”); the terms PEG and polysorbate, typically followed by a number (as in PEG-40 or polysorbate 20); and the ingredient phenoxyethanol.

Avoid artificial dyes and colorants. Many artificial colorants used in body wash resist biodegradation in the environment. To shop for more sustainable alternatives, look for and avoid the term FD&C, typically followed by a color name and number, on packaging. Examples include FD&C Blue No. 1, FD&C Yellow No. 5, and FD&C Green No. 3. While not all artificial dyes and colorants are linked to environmental or human health concerns, this tip can fast-track you to finding better product options.

Quit quats. Quaternary ammonium compounds, or quats for short, serve a number of functions in products. In body wash, they’re typically used as surfactants. Many quats are not biodegradable, so avoiding them increases your odds of choosing a better surfactant.

While quats can be difficult to swap out in some product types, like hair care, because of their performance, they don’t outperform other surfactants in body wash, so they can more easily be avoided without sacrificing product efficacy.

Look for certified products. Third-party certification is one way to lean on experts to help you identify safer, more sustainable products. “Consumers should not need to be organic chemists and toxicologists in order to feel confident picking up a product on the shelf and reading the label,” Streets says. 

The Made Safe and Made Wise certification programs were created to help serve this purpose, utilizing a scientific review framework and evaluating products for more than 15,000 harmful substances. “Ensuring transparency, promising ingredient integrity, and prohibiting harmful ingredients are all reasons Made Wise and Made Safe certification programs exist,” says Amy Ziff, the founder and executive director of Made Safe. “They do the hard work and homework, making it clear for consumers which products stand out in a world of greenwashed and conventional products.”

CVS
CVS stated that the ingredients used in Beauty Oatmeal & Shea Butter Body Wash “are approved by the FDA for use in cosmetics.” However, the FDA does not preapprove ingredients for use in the U.S., with the exception of some color additives. Rather, personal care companies are responsible for ensuring the safety of their products. The company did not disclose the ingredients in its fragrance formulation, citing that the formulation is proprietary to its supplier. 

Ivory, Native, and Old Spice
Procter & Gamble, the parent company of Ivory, Native, and Old Spice, declined to comment on the ingredients that were flagged for safety and sustainability in Ivory Gentle Body Wash Original Scent, Native Regular Body Washes, and Old Spice Men’s Body Wash, Swagger Scent of Confidence. The company did point us toward a digital platform, SmartLabel, that the company said contained publicly disclosed lists of ingredients used within the fragrance formulations.

After a review of P&G’s SmartLabel web pages, Consumer Reports encountered numerous issues with the information about Native body washes. We followed up with P&G to obtain accurate information. P&G responded, stating, “Ingredient transparency is important to P&G and Native. We have discovered a glitch where our ingredient data is not flowing correctly into SmartLabel.” The company subsequently removed Native’s web pages from SmartLabel and stated that ingredients could be found on the company’s website. At the time of publication, fragrance information was not disclosed on Native’s website. 

Additionally, after reviewing P&G’s SmartLabel web pages for Ivory and Old Spice, we followed up with the company regarding flagged ingredients in the products’ fragrance formulations; the company declined to comment.

The Honest Company
The Honest Company told Consumer Reports that flagged ingredients guar hydroxypropyltrimonium chloride and trisodium ethylenediamine disuccinate were reviewed by their in-house toxicology team and that the ingredients are rated “low hazard” by external chemical hazard assessment agencies. “Based on this third-party scientific research and the findings of our toxicology team, we stand by our assessment that these ingredients have a strong safety profile at the use levels in these products for both human health and the environment, making them a responsible, effective choice in our formulations,” the company stated. The Honest Company also provided clarifying information about the derivation of linalyl acetate, linalool, and limonene in the formulations, confirming they are naturally occurring components of plant ingredients and are listed to bolster transparency.

Method
SC Johnson responded to our request for comment regarding subsidiary company Method, stating, “We follow a rigorous process to evaluate the human and environmental profile of every ingredient in our formulations.” According to the company, this includes consultation with internal and external experts that specialize in ingredient safety and regulatory affairs, as well as testing guided by their toxicology team, including assessment for potential irritation and allergenicity. 

The company declined to share the ingredients within the fragrance formulation, saying, “We can confirm that all ingredients are used within safe limits, in accordance with our internal safety standards and applicable regulations.”

St. Ives
Elida Beauty, which holds St. Ives within its portfolio, stated, “Please rest assured that every ingredient we use goes through rigorous safety assessments and meets all applicable regulations.” When asked to disclose all ingredients in Soothing Body Wash Oatmeal & Shea Butter’s fragrance formulation, the company said, “Unfortunately, we don’t have access to the complete list of ingredients within the fragrance component, as it is proprietary and developed by our fragrance partners.” The company stated that the ingredients comply with international safety standards like the International Fragrance Association, a self-regulating industry body that creates fragrance safety standards. Regarding coumarin, the company did not know whether the ingredient was naturally occurring as part of a plant-derived ingredient or whether it was intentionally added as part of the fragrance formulation, but said it was present at low levels.

All other companies did not respond to our request for comment or did not provide the requested information.