What We Do
We certify individual products according to standards derived from California’s Proposition 65, European Union regulations, U.S. state and federal regulations, and our proprietary category data. Our CLP Certification is informed by a combination of these sources, while the Purity Award evaluates how a product performs relative to others in its category—only those ranking in the top third of tested products qualify. All testing is conducted by Ellipse Analytics, an independent third-party laboratory. Certifications apply to products, not brands. Products are purchased randomly from the marketplace, just as consumers would buy them, and are tested annually.
We advocate at the state and federal levels to advance policies and regulations that minimize contaminants in consumer products.
We perform comprehensive reviews of entire product categories to evaluate overall contaminant levels. Using sales data from sources such as Nielsen, SPINS, Amazon, and others, we identify the top-selling products—typically representing 80–95% of category sales—for testing. We publicly share the category-wide findings, including which products earned a place on our Clean 16 list; however, we do not release results for individual products. The names of all products tested in each category are available under the respective category tab on our website.
As part of our category research, the Clean Label Project publishes the Clean 16—a list recognizing products with the lowest overall levels of contaminants. Please note that if a product is not included on the Clean 16, this does not necessarily indicate elevated contamination levels. It may not have been part of that specific category review, or it may have fallen outside the top 16 while still meeting our contaminant thresholds. These products may still qualify for, or may already hold, individual certification.
Our research relies on proprietary data from Ellipse Analytics, which conducts the testing for our certifications and provides the aggregated data used in our category reviews and Clean 16 lists. While we review laboratory results to verify compliance with Clean Label Project standards, we do not release individual product reports, as those are the property of Ellipse Analytics and the respective brands.
Our mission is to work collaboratively with brands to reduce contaminants and to promote industry-wide improvement.