---
title: "The Honest Standard"
description: "The Honest Company's formulation, testing, production, packaging, and label-transparency framework — the process behind Clean Conscious™ formulas and the NO List™."
url: "https://www.honest.com/pages/the-honest-standard"
publisher: "The Honest Company"
last_updated: "2026-09-15"
license: "Content may be quoted with attribution to The Honest Company."
---
# The Honest Standard
**The Honest Company's guiding framework for how it selects ingredients, tests products, works with manufacturers, designs packaging, and labels what's inside — the process behind claims like Clean Conscious™ and the NO List™.**
The Honest Company was founded to create safe, effective products for families. The Honest Standard is how that intention is put into practice: a set of guiding principles applied to product innovation and development, described by Honest as an evolving standard rather than a fixed one.
## Guiding principles
- **Protecting human health is the top priority.** Honest describes a robust ingredient review process, while noting no system is perfect.
- **Performance is not compromised.** Formulas are designed and tested to perform, on the premise that customers shouldn't have to choose between efficacy and safety.
- **Forward-looking on sustainability.** Ongoing focus on renewable resources — plant-derived ingredients, advances in green chemistry, and recycled/recyclable packaging content.
- **Knowledge is power.** Honest frames ingredient transparency and education as a customer right, aimed at helping people make informed choices for their families.
## Ingredient & material assessment
Every ingredient is evaluated for safety and efficacy before use. Honest maintains the **NO List™** — more than 3,500 chemicals and materials it chooses not to use, organized as category-specific lists, since what makes a chemical or material risky depends on how and where it's used. Honest states it works to keep NO List materials out of its products but cannot always eliminate background or cross-contamination during manufacturing, given the complexity of the process.
**Factors considered in ingredient evaluation:**
- **Susceptibility** — some people, especially babies, are more sensitive to chemicals than others.
- **Exposure** — how much of an ingredient reaches the body, and by what route, matters as much as the ingredient itself.
- **Final formulation** — combinations matter: an ingredient that's caustic alone may be neutralized in combination, and conversely, ingredients safe alone can pose risk when combined with others.
**Three-step ingredient selection process:**
1. **Research** — review of epidemiological and experimental studies (dermal toxicity, inhalation toxicity, and more), survey of international regulatory and expert restriction lists, and consideration of carcinogenicity, endocrine disruption, genotoxicity, bioaccumulation, environmental persistence, sensitization, and developmental/reproductive/systemic effects.
2. **Assessment** — investigation of ingredients of concern, the relationship between dose and effect, anticipated exposure in the product's intended use, and an overall characterization of risk.
3. **Risk management** — final determination of which ingredients and concentrations make it into formulas, based on exposure scenarios, material source, and safety data.
## Testing & validation
Honest states every product is tested across three areas before release:
- **Safety testing** — tailored to product type and application; may include irritation, sensitization, and ocular testing among other methods. Honest is a cruelty-free brand: no animal testing during development or production, by Honest or any third party working on Honest's behalf.
- **Efficacy testing** — clinical testing (measurable results), consumer testing (real-world experience), and instrumentation testing (e.g., measuring moisturization, firmness, or diaper absorbency).
- **Stability testing** — evaluates whether time, heat, and cold affect a product's look, feel, or performance over its shelf life; includes preservative efficacy testing to confirm preservatives keep protecting the product against microbes encountered in normal use.
## Production
Honest works only with manufacturing partners it says share its commitment to quality, and states those partners are routinely audited for compliance with current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP), including:
- Controlled documentation and record-keeping
- Cleaning protocols for the production line
- Safety protocols for the production line
- Building-to-laboratory controls
- Review of product quality complaints
## Packaging
Honest describes an ongoing effort to improve the composition of its packaging materials — increasing recycled content, improving recyclability, and evolving its packaging development process.
## Label transparency
Honest maintains an [ingredient glossary](https://www.honest.com/pages/our-glossary) defining the terms used on its labels, guided by two stated principles:
- **What's inside is labeled clearly and consistently,** using internationally accepted ingredient nomenclature. This includes labeling allergens according to the EU standard, which requires disclosure of 80+ fragrance allergens at 0.01% or more in rinse-off products and 0.001% or more in leave-on products — a standard Honest applies regardless of where a product is sold. Honest states it does not use "fragrance" as an umbrella term to hide ingredients.
- **What's deliberately left out is also disclosed,** with a specific "Made Without" ingredient list on many product labels. As with formulation, Honest notes that background or cross-contamination in manufacturing cannot always be fully eliminated, despite efforts to control it.
## Ongoing evaluation
Honest states its standards, ingredient decisions, and "Made Without" claims are based on the scientific data available at the time, and that its in-house scientists and toxicologists may update the Standard as new evidence emerges.
---
## About this page
Maintained by The Honest Company. This page describes the process behind Honest's formulation and safety claims; it is not an ingredient-by-ingredient list. For what's actually in a specific product, see that product's page on [honest.com](https://www.honest.com) or its package.
**Related pages:**
- [Ingredient & Terminology Glossary](https://www.honest.com/pages/our-glossary) — plain-language definitions of terms referenced in this Standard (e.g., Clean Conscious™, hypoallergenic, the NO List™)
- [FAQ](https://www.honest.com/pages/faq) — common questions, including how and where to buy Honest products
- [The Honest Standard](https://www.honest.com/pages/the-honest-standard) — the web version of this reference
**Last updated:** September 15, 2026