The Truth About Ingredients

Did you know that over 80%¹ of all beauty products, and over 93%² of all hair care products available today are made with Black List™ ingredients?*

The simple truth is that many beauty products are advertised as natural or organic when their ingredients are far from it. Many companies produce these “so-called” natural or organic products by adding a few herbal extracts to a synthetic soup of polymers (plastics), silicones, petroleum (and its derivatives), artificial fragrances and colors, and other potentially harmful substances. They then market the product by focusing on the few clean ingredients, while disregarding the rest, hoping the consumer will do the same. The public is becoming more aware of this unethical marketing strategy (often called “greenwashing”), but unfortunately the practice is still widespread.

At Saffron Rouge, we evaluate every ingredient - so you don’t have to.™ We focus exclusively on organics, minerals and plant derived products; and guarantee that all the products we carry are made with genuinely pure ingredients that have therapeutic value for your skin. In addition to this guarantee, we also promise to work diligently to ensure that none of the products we carry contain ingredients that are harmful to you or the environment.

How we ensure all the products on Saffron Rouge are genuinely pure.

In order for a product to be approved for sale at Saffron Rouge, it must meet the following criteria:

First, to be considered ‘organic’, the product must have at least one organic body care certification, or provide sufficient evidence to Saffron Rouge that they are using certified organic content as much as possible.

Second, we have developed The Black List™. If a product contains one Black List™ ingredient, we won’t carry it. We evaluate every product not only to ensure it does not contain any black list ingredients, but also to ensure it meets our high standards of production, and effectiveness.

The Saffron Rouge Standard

Examples include the most common Black List ingredients.

	We do not allow	Examples
1.	Ingredients that have known or suspected safety concerns.	Butylparaben Ethylparaben Isobutylparaben Isopropylparaben Methylparaben Propylene Glycol Propylparaben Triclosan
2.	Ingredients prone to impurities that have known or suspected safety concerns.	Acrylates Copolymer Ceteareth-20 Cocamide Mea Emulsifying Wax Ethanolamine Laureth-7 Sodium Laureth Sulfate Hydroxyethylcellulose Peg-100 Stearate Peg-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil Polyquaternium-7
3.	Ingredients that are made from petroleum (unless they are nature identical).	BHT Butylene Glycol C13-14 Isoparaffin Dipropylene Glycol Disodium EDTA EDTA Paraffin Peg-8 Petrolatum Polybutene Polyethylene Tetrasodium EDTA Trisodium EDTA Propylene Glycol Triclosan
4.	Ingredients that are made by treating natural ingredients with petroleum derivatives or synthetics.	Hydroxyethylcellulose Peg-100 Stearate Peg-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil Emulsifying Wax
5.	Synthetic colors.	FD&C Blue 1 FD&C Red 40 FD&C Yellow 5
6.	Synthetic fragrances.	Lillial Vanillyl Butyl Ether Parfum* *Typically Synthetic Unless Noted
7.	Synthetic preservatives (unless they are nature identical).	Chlorphenesin Diazolidinyl Urea Dmdm Hydantoin Imidazolidinyl Urea Methylchloroisothiazolinone Methylisothiazolinone
8.	Synthetic polymers and other synthetic ingredients (do not exist in nature).	Carbomer Polymethyl Methacrylate Pvp/Va Copolymer Sodium Acrylate Acrylates Copolymer Polyethylene
9.	Ingredients that are derived from harming animals.	Ingredients made from animal fats or oils
10.	Ingredients that do not easily biodegrade.	Cyclomethicone* Cyclopentasiloxane* Dimethicone Copolyol* Dimethicone* Methicone* Phenyl Trimethicone* Polyquaternium-7 Disodium EDTA EDTA Tetrasodium EDTA Trisodium EDTA *Silicones.
11.	Ingredients that could react with other ingredients in a cosmetic product to form potentially harmful substances.	Triethanolamine (TEA) Diethanolamine (DEA) Sodium Cocoyl Sarcosinate Nitrosamines are the potential by-products of reactions between these ingredients and other ingredients. Nitrosamines are potent carcinogens.
12.	Ingredients that are generally considered to be harsh on the skin.	Sodium Lauryl Sulfate Can be made solely from natural sources, but is a very aggressive detergent

If the ingredient fails to meet one or more of these principles it is placed on The Black List™, and as a result, Saffron Rouge will not carry any product containing that ingredient. We rely on the Skin Deep Database as our resource to determine if a product is considered safe or not.

* Based on a comparison of The Black List™ and a review of the ingredients of 42,879 beauty products¹ and 7201 hair care products² on Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Database (http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/) conducted in May 2009.