Aveda is one of those brands that has long held a reputation for being pure, natural, safe and environmentally friendly. After all, Aveda brands itself as “providing beauty industry professionals with high performance, botanically based products that would be better for service providers and their guests, as well as for the planet.”
But, many people are incredibly disappointed to trust in this ‘green’ image of Aveda, only to read the ingredients on their products and realize that many contain parabens, sodium laureth sulfate, artificial fragrance, petrochemicals and other ingredients of questionable safety and origin. In fact, the majority of Aveda’s products rate no better in the Cosmetic Safety Database than products from brands like MAC Cosmetics, which makes no claims about being natural or eco-friendly.
On their ingredient guide, for example, Aveda states that “what you put on your body should be as healthy and natural as what you put in it”. It then lists dozens of natural ingredients like avocado, flax, neroli, seaweed and tourmaline with nary a mention of the ingredients contained within their products that don’t fit this standard.
Aveda has rightfully earned their reputation as stewards of the environment, as they’re one of the biggest brands to do so much work raising awareness about causes like recycling, pollution and the responsible sourcing of raw materials. Aveda takes great care to ensure that when they purchase exotic ingredients like Lippia from Brazil, they’re giving back to the community and encouraging sustainability. They’re also the first beauty company to run on 100% wind power, and an industry leader in responsible packaging. Aveda has a lot to be proud of.
Stacy Malkan of the Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database says that for all Aveda’s efforts, they should really be focusing on safer ingredients. “A company like Aveda, with the backing of billion-dollar Estee Lauder, really ought to be at the front of the line innovating the safest products on the market,” says Malkan. “Instead, I think what we’ve seen is a trend that the major multinational beauty companies face a lot of pressure to keep costs low, and use a lot of cheap synthetic petrochemical ingredients.”
Aveda responded by stating that they’re working on changing their formulas, actively working to replace parabens with other preservatives. Aveda Spokeswoman Suzanne Dawson says they currently offer 350 products that don’t contain parabens. They’re also seeking organic certification for more of their ingredients. Until recently, the company contended that parabens were safe (the FDA deems them so, but they also lets high levels of phthalates, BPA and lead slip under the radar, so can they really be trusted?).
We’ve certainly come a long way since women smeared products all over their bodies without a moment’s thought of what was in them. We’re demanding safer, better, more natural, more responsible – and that’s the key. If companies don’t see a good reason to change, they won’t. But if consumers come together to say “we deserve better than this”, the companies will listen.
I recently wrote to Aveda asking that they continue improving their products and practices, to truly live up to their reputation. You should, too – and do the same for any other ‘natural’ company you like that still uses questionable ingredients.
Read all about Aveda’s standards and practices at the Aveda website.
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no, they are not. they have practices and methods that are eco-conscious to get to the end products but i would not say that the end products are “green” per se. i have used their products on my hair and no, ma’am. i went to a salon for a facial and my skin and eyes burned from one of the ayurvedic treatments.
November 4th, 2008 at 6:37 pmI have to say that I was one that believed I was doing the right thing by using their products (marketing once again triumphs). It is so dissapointing….I don’t know why we have to spend so much time getting to the truth about products. I feel like I spend hours reasearching the Skin Deep database (which has its own controversy), researching online and writing to companies….would be nice to find a definitive guide!
Thanks for the post.
Patty
November 5th, 2008 at 5:03 am[...] Are Aveda Products as Safe and Natural as They Claim? [...]
November 5th, 2008 at 6:23 amThanks for the great info…. I’ve been wondering about Aveda myself!
November 5th, 2008 at 11:53 amI’ve been using Aveda products for years, and to be fair, they were talking about making products more natural before many others were AND they were big enough to really make changes in the industry. That being said, I am phasing out my use of Aveda hair care products until I see some serious changes- BUT knowing them I bet they’re on this already- I would be surprised if they weren’t going to be debuting reformulations soon.
November 5th, 2008 at 4:05 pmWell, this is disappointing! I love Aveda products. In fact, I’m going to an Aveda salon next week because I’m dying to color my “virgin hair” for the first time and want to use eco-safe products. I’m definitely going to quiz my stylist about this!
November 6th, 2008 at 7:01 pm[...] Are Aveda products as safe and natural as they claim? Many people are incredibly disappointed to trust in this ‘green’ image of Aveda, only to read the ingredients on their products and realize that many contain parabens, sodium laureth sulfate, artificial fragrance, petrochemicals and other ingredients of questionable safety and origin. [...]
November 7th, 2008 at 7:01 amWe’ve been chatting about Aveda for a while. It is a shame they are not more natural. I sent a letter two years ago, inquiring as to why they used such nasty ingredients in their purported ‘natural’ products. I never got a response. Ann wrote about the carcinogens and chemicals some time ago, http://eco-chick.com/2007/09/01/my-cosmetics-and-yours/ it is strange, to me, that they have not changed their ways thus far, since they have been getting bad press for at least two years???
November 7th, 2008 at 12:21 pm[...] Are Aveda products as safe and natural as they claim? Many people are incredibly disappointed to trust in this ‘green’ image of Aveda, only to read the ingredients on their products and realize that many contain parabens, sodium laureth sulfate, artificial fragrance, petrochemicals and other ingredients of questionable safety and origin. [...]
November 10th, 2008 at 12:25 pmAs an Aveda Concept Salon owner I wanted to share some insights. In the last two years Aveda has replaced formulas on over 10 products. This may seem low, but it takes a lot of research and testing to replace chemicals with natural ingredients. I do know that the newest product lines are in more compliance than the products originally created by Horst. At this point all products that had VOC’s have had a formula change. Other products may be discontinued and replaced with compliant product lines soon. Please know if you buy Aveda anywhere but from Aveda.com or an Aveda Salon you may be buying one of these discontinued products or versions with old formulas.
Depending on what color service you have done with Aveda hair color, it will be 93%-99% derived from plants. This means that the actual color is coming from natural plants. The other part of the color is the chemical neccessary to bond the color to the hair. There is not other professional hair color line that comes close to what Aveda has achieved. Unfortunately if you trully want 100% natural hair color it will not stay in your hair for very long, so your best bet is no color if this what you are trying to achieve.
Aveda also changed the formula on all of its lip colors a few months ago to be 100% nautrally derived.
Are the products safe? I would say yes and no. Being that Aveda is trying to achieve 100% nautrally derived products, we do find that some customers have allergies to ingredients like flax seed oil. Just like any chemical based product individuals may have allergies to different ingredients. The products are safe, but may not be for every person.
Aveda is the the first beauty company to produce its products with 100% wind power. Aveda also gives back to the communities it sources ingredients from to ensure the communities are sustainable and paid fairly for the ingredients. This is a major reason why I choose to sell only Aveda products. There are many product lines, and many with all kinds of claims, but at the end of the day Aveda is following through on its mission. Aveda is now making bottles very recycled plastic bottle caps. Bottle caps are not recyclable in many locations and we are working to send our customer lids back to Aveda to do this. There is work ahead, but I do know they are working on it.
Success of the Aveda line will only allow Aveda to dedicate more resources to changing product formulas and to continue its environmental efforts aorund the world.
November 30th, 2008 at 10:39 pmHi my name is Renee I was wondering if
formaldhyde was in your products.
Renee
December 7th, 2008 at 12:27 pmI have to say, it really frustrates me to read incorrect information on forums like this one.
I am a colour specialist in an aveda concept salon and have been using aveda colour ever since it was launched.
I thank Ray for clearing a few things up. I just wanted to add, that you should do your own research, ask aveda itself and be careful not to make confusing statements. aveda is not using artificial fragrance in any of its products. never have done, never will be. using pure essential oils as aroma in all their products is their main point of difference. even in the hair colour there are no masking synthetic fragrances used. most of the essential oils are now even organically resourced and so are the other plant ingredients. btw, aveda has never stated anywhere it’s products are 100% natural or organic for that matter. so, don’t be disappointed that they use some ‘non natural’ ingredients. if you want a great performing professional product you need to make compromises. in other words, if you want your shampoo to clean your hair properly, you need the ingredients to do that. and the apparently 100% organic shampoo with no surfactants won’t do that. as far as I know, it’s actually not possible to have a 100% organic product, because by law synthetic preservatives must be used to make the product ’safe’. there you go. origins (another Estee Lauder company) have got an organic range, but not all of them are 100% as they declare on each of their products. trust me, if it would be possible, aveda would be the first company to produce only 100% organic professional products without any synthetics or ‘non natural’ ingredients.
horst’s (founder of aveda) new company ‘intelligent nutrients’ produces organic products, but not all of them are 100% either. check them out, they are really fantastic. I use some of them, the body cleanser doesn’t foam and the shampoo is NOT 100% organic! the range is very limited, not even horst can do it. and he’s the most committed person on the planet to drive this trend, believe me.
at the end of the day, it’s up to you, the consumer, to make an informed decision. I have plenty of guests in the salon who ask all those questions. but you cannot question a few ingredients in a product and then go on driving your car unnecessarily, go on exotic holidays by plane, keep smoking cigarettes, eat conventionally produced meat and buy cheap and nasty cosmetics from the next best supermarket.
December 20th, 2008 at 3:20 amit just doesn’t make sense.
It is very frustrating reading this post. Aveda has been around for 30 years way before this green movement start. Aveda has never said that they’re products were 100% natural. There is no way you can make a product that is 100% natural anyway without it being safe. They’re pretty close though. I just find if funny that you think they aren’t natural because a person with food allerges are advised NOT to use the products because of the natural ingredients And you’ve obviously never smelt any of their products because if you have you would know that there are no artifical fragrances in them.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:56 pm