CertClean is North America’s leading certification for safer beauty and personal care products.

If your business sells its own brand of cosmetics and or personal care products which are formulated without potentially harmful ingredients, we would love to hear from you. Get the distinction you deserve. Connect with us by filling out an online form.

The Conundrum

Shoppers struggle to recognize safer beauty products on store shelves because they’re practically indistinguishable.

There’s a growing awareness that large companies use questionable ingredients, such as talc and parabens. So shoppers turn to brands that use marketing buzzwords like “natural” and “organic.” And they rightfully assume they’re protecting themselves from harm! But in Canada, if just one chemical in a cosmetic is natural or organic, the product is legally allowed to be marketed as entirely natural or organic. So how can shoppers avoid questionable chemicals in their everyday beauty products?

At the same time, countless brands rise above the status quo to craft products void of questionable chemicals. However, the journey to success — even for the best amongst them — is an uphill struggle. Why? How can brands that don’t use harmful chemicals get recognized for their superior formulations?

So how can shoppers avoid questionable chemicals in their everyday beauty products? How can brands that don’t use harmful chemicals get recognized for their superior formulations?

The Solution

CertClean: The certification shoppers trust. The distinction brands need.

With clean beauty products proudly bearing the CertClean logo, it is now possible for shoppers to confidently and easily discover safer beauty and personal care products. At the same time, the clean beauty products now get the authentication and distinction they deserve.

CertClean vets beauty and personal care products formulated without the use of potentially harmful ingredients, such as carcinogens, chemicals that may potentially affect our hormonal system, reproductive system, neurological system, etc.

CertClean is not a certification for products with a certain quantity of natural or organic ingredients but a certification for products free from ingredients that may pose risk to our hormonal, reproductive and or neurological systems, like talcum powder, formaldehyde-releasing preservatives, parabens, sodium lauryl sulfates, and hundreds more (See Standards). CertClean is a certification which prioritizes human health over the use of organic and natural ingredients.

Clean beauty: what we call products formulated without questionable ingredients!

We’re turning the ugly beauty industry on its head!

The Journey

To date, we have certified over 800 products from 20+ brands from across Canada.

Don’t fret. While we only certify Canadian products at the moment, we’ll start accepting American ones later in the year (so subscribe to our newsletter to stay tuned!)

CertClean is a way of addressing the perverse irony that most of the products people use to look better on the outside may cause long-term harm to the body internally. For over 2 years (under the name Clean Care), we’ve been developing rigorous certification standards and eligibility criteria that take into consideration the latest science. And through our Clean Beauty Awards, we’ve been showcasing the best of the bunch by awarding—and consequently promoting—the best performing clean beauty products.

Vision

CertClean certified products found in every bathroom.

A good day is when we certify new clean beauty products so these changemakers can get the distinction they deserve. A great day is when we simplify shoppers’ experience to discover and experience good clean cosmetics and personal care products.

Help us get there by staying in touch via social and our newsletter, passing this info along to your family and friends, and directing clean beauty brands our way. Together, we CAN create a better beauty standard and change the status quo.

MESSAGE FROM THE FOUNDER

Growing up as an environmentalist with severe nut allergies, reading labels and avoiding questionable chemicals has always been an integral part of my life. Family and friends, don’t have it so “easy”.

With more and more of our everyday beauty/personal care products now claiming to be 'all-natural' or 'organic', many people are being 'tricked' into buying products that aren't what they claim to be. Currently, in Canada, if just one ingredient in the ingredients list is natural, the entire product can be labeled 'natural'. Let's think about this for a minute: Water is natural. When you see a product with water, is it labelled natural and yet contain a host of toxic chemicals? In too many instances, the answer to this question is yes. It is unbelievable how easy it is for businesses to be able to make such misleading claims!

The idea for CertClean was born out of this distraught reality.

Armed with a chemical engineering degree from the University of Waterloo, an MBA from the Schulich School of Business, 7 years as a board member for an environmental health charity and over 10 years of experience working within the environmental sector, I set out to make it easy for friends and family to easily discover safer skincare without requiring a drastic change in their purchasing behaviour, while at the same time helping the underdog making safer products to not only survive, but thrive.

Together, we will make safer skincare the new norm.