How We are Leading the Industry in End-Product Testing
By Marilee Nelson |
At Branch Basics, safety was always our number one priority when it came to the creation of our formula.
We are passionate about leading the cleaning industry to a higher standard by empowering consumers with transparency and an open door policy when it comes to information on the safety of the products they use in their homes.
We always try to go the extra mile and provide additional information for the consumer because bold claims on a label is not enough in today’s world of greenwashing.
We want our customers to be educated and have all the information they need to understand what is truly safe.
What are we doing to help?
A priority when introducing our new formula was listing our ingredients in their entirety.
Branch Basics is abiding by the food and cosmetic standard of labeling where ingredients are listed in descending order of their occurrence by volume instead of the cleaning industry standard, which doesn't regulate or require ingredients to even be listed on the label!
Even though our ingredient list doesn't include any harmful ingredients in themselves (all of our individual ingredients are rated 1 on the EWG Skin Deep Database and we are rated a zero on Think Dirty) we decided to do end-product testing to give our customers more information on the properties of our formula.
What is End-Product Testing?
We learned that the individual ingredients used to make a product may not fully reflect the properties and safety of the final formula. Therefore listing all ingredients on a label may not be enough as once mixed, the ingredient properties may have been altered.
Branch Basics is hoping to lead the industry in end-product testing so consumers will have more information about products they consider purchasing.
End-product testing reveals the properties of the formula after the ingredients have been mixed and can reveal specific characteristics of the formula and how a formula impacts the body.
Since it was really important that our formula was not an eye or skin irritant, we had many sensitive people test before we would give final approval for ingredients. Even though we believe that people are the most sensitive testing instrument, we knew it would be powerful to put our product to the test.
The Results
We had end product testing that confirms officially the formula is not a skin or eye irritant so we can state that on our label! The skin irritation testing put our formula into direct contact with human skin-like tissue for a specified period of time.
The results? Better than any the testing lab had ever seen even better than natural soaps! Our formula tested 100% to be like the control.
In other words, it performed on the skin just as a saline solution would with no irritation. What about your eyes? The eye irritation testing put our formula into direct contact with ocular-like tissue for a predetermined amount of time and it was declared not to be an eye irritant! We are very excited about these results!
But wait... there’s more!
Further end product testing on our formula illustrates how an ingredient used to make a formula may not even show up at all in the end product.
The organic corn that is found in one of the ingredients in our formula, after testing, was not present in the formula at all. Not even any corn DNA! We are ecstatic with these results, but we still recognize that anyone can have a sensitivity to or allergy to a specific ingredient and we recommend that very sensitive people order a 2-ounce trial size and carefully test our product.
So with our test results and our fully-disclosed ingredient list, we encourage our customers to make an informed decision that is best for them when considering using our product as a cleaning product only or as a rinse-off hand and body wash as well.
We are fans of both a pure soap and our Foaming Wash when it comes to cleaning the body. You can read the in-depth reports for our skin irritation testing here. As well as the results for our eye irritation tests here.
Cheer to human-safe products!
Marilee Nelson
Marilee Nelson is an Environmental Toxins expert who has spent nearly 30 years advocating for the chemically-sensitive and chronically-ill. She is a Board Certified Nutritionist, Certified Bau-Biologist and Bau-Biology Inspector and specializes in Food As Medicine. She has helped thousands of families and individuals identify, heal and recover from toxic exposures and is on a mission to revolutionize the way American families view their health.
