# What Is MADE SAFE Certification? > MADE SAFE screens every ingredient against a list of more than 6,500 banned substances — including a test for aquatic toxicity that most personal care certifications skip. - Type: explainer - Published: 2026-08-01 - Updated: 2026-08-01 - Author: Lucas Gruber - Canonical: https://nontoxicnook.com/articles/what-is-made-safe-certification Prices are deliberately omitted from this mirror — they go stale. Current prices, stock, and where to buy live on the product pages linked below. --- MADE SAFE screens every ingredient in a product against a list of more than 6,500 banned substances — and it's one of the few certifications that tests for harm to aquatic ecosystems, not just human health. ## What MADE SAFE Is and Who Runs It MADE SAFE stands for Made With Safe Ingredients. It's run by Nontoxic Certified, a U.S. nonprofit founded in 2015. The core premise is straightforward: every ingredient in a finished product must be evaluated against a banned substances list before the product can carry the MADE SAFE seal. What distinguishes MADE SAFE from many certifications is the scope of that evaluation. Most personal care and household certifications screen for what's harmful to the person using the product. MADE SAFE also screens for what harms aquatic ecosystems — fish, invertebrates, and the water supply downstream of the drain. This matters because many ingredients that pass common human-health screens don't pass aquatic toxicity screens. Certain preservatives, fragrances, and surfactants are not acutely dangerous to humans at cosmetic concentrations but are persistent in water and toxic to aquatic organisms. ## What the Standard Covers MADE SAFE certifies products across four broad categories: **Personal care** — shampoo, conditioner, body wash, lotion, sunscreen, deodorant, lip balm, toothpaste. This is where MADE SAFE has the deepest roster of certified brands. Every ingredient on the label — including fragrances, preservatives, and colorants — is evaluated against the banned list. **Baby products** — baby wash, lotion, diaper cream, wipes, sunscreen, feeding essentials. For baby personal care and soft goods, MADE SAFE is the most rigorous screen available. Products in this category are held to the same substance list as adult personal care, with no exemptions for "gentle" formulations that rely on undisclosed ingredients. **Household products** — cleaning sprays, dish soap, laundry detergent, stain removers. Most household cleaning certifications already screen for aquatic toxicity because surfactants go down the drain; MADE SAFE layers a full human-health screen on top of that baseline. **Textiles** — apparel and soft goods. The textile category is newer and has fewer certified products than personal care, but for clothing and bedding sold to chemically sensitive individuals or young children, MADE SAFE-certified textiles carry a more thorough chemical screen than most label claims. The common thread: MADE SAFE evaluates the *full ingredient list*, not just the active or headline ingredients. A sunscreen that uses a safe UV filter but a problematic preservative would not pass. ## The 6,500+ Banned Substances List The banned list is the technical engine of the certification. MADE SAFE evaluates substances against 13 recognized threat categories: **Carcinogens** — substances classified as known, probable, or possible human carcinogens by IARC, NTP, or the EPA. **Endocrine disruptors** — compounds that interfere with hormonal signaling, including chemicals that mimic estrogen, disrupt thyroid function, or affect fetal development. **Developmental and reproductive toxicants** — substances that harm the developing embryo, fetus, or child, or that affect fertility. **Neurotoxins** — compounds that damage the nervous system, with particular attention to developmental neurotoxins that affect brain development in children. **Flame retardants** — chemical FR additives used in textiles, foams, and product components. **Heavy metals** — lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, and others used in pigments, glazes, and stabilizers. **High-concern pesticides** — those classified as highly hazardous by the Pesticide Action Network. **Aquatic toxicants** — substances harmful to fish, invertebrates, or aquatic plants. This is what separates MADE SAFE from most personal care certifications. Surfactants, certain preservatives, and fragrance compounds are all evaluated under this category. **Persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) substances** — compounds that don't break down in the environment and accumulate in the food chain. PFAS are the most recognized example; the category also covers flame retardant chemicals and others that resist environmental degradation. The list is published, not proprietary. A product can fail by containing one banned substance, and there are no exemption thresholds for listed chemicals. > **What the banned list can't cover** > > The MADE SAFE list evaluates substances against known and probable hazards. It cannot assess novel ingredients without existing toxicology data. Brands with proprietary formulations who decline to disclose ingredient-by-ingredient chemistry cannot be certified — which is itself a useful filter. ## Third-Party Lab Testing and Annual Audits MADE SAFE certification is not self-declared. The process has three steps: **1. Full ingredient disclosure.** The brand submits a complete ingredient list. There are no proprietary blends — if a component can't be named, it can't be evaluated. **2. Third-party lab testing.** Independent labs test the finished product to confirm the ingredient disclosure is complete and accurate. Substances that appear in testing but weren't disclosed cause the product to fail. **3. Annual recertification.** Brands must resubmit and retest every year. If a formulation changes mid-cycle, the updated version must pass before the MADE SAFE seal can appear on it. The annual requirement addresses a common failure mode in certification programs: a product passes once and then quietly reformulates. A product currently on store shelves has been independently tested within the last 12 months under this schedule. ## How MADE SAFE Differs from EWG Verified EWG Verified is the Environmental Working Group's certification for personal care products. Both MADE SAFE and EWG Verified require full ingredient disclosure, ban a long list of harmful substances, and require third-party review. They overlap significantly — but they're not identical. The clearest difference: **EWG Verified screens for human health hazards. MADE SAFE also screens for ecological harm.** EWG Verified does not have a standalone aquatic toxicity or bioaccumulation evaluation. MADE SAFE's 13 threat categories explicitly include aquatic toxicants and persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic substances — so a product that passes EWG Verified's human-health screen might still fail MADE SAFE's ecological screen. Surfactants, some preservatives, and certain fragrance compounds are where this gap shows up most often. The other practical difference is scope. EWG Verified covers personal care only. MADE SAFE certifies personal care, baby, household, and textiles. For a certified laundry detergent or a certified baby blanket, EWG Verified doesn't apply — MADE SAFE does. For a comparison of how these certifications sit alongside GOTS and OEKO-TEX across product categories, see [EWG Verified vs. OEKO-TEX vs. GOTS: Which Certification Matters?](/articles/ewg-verified-oeko-tex-gots-certification-comparison). ## When MADE SAFE Is the Right Standard **Baby personal care and soft goods.** For lotion, wash, diaper cream, and wipes applied to a newborn or young infant, MADE SAFE is the most rigorous standard available. Infants absorb a higher percentage of what's applied to their skin than adults, have less liver capacity to metabolize toxicants, and spend most of their time in close contact with fabric and product-treated surfaces. MADE SAFE's human-health and ecological screening together cover both direct exposure routes and the ingredient categories that most commonly appear in conventional baby products. **Household cleaning products.** For cleaning products where the full ingredient list matters — not just the declared active ingredients — MADE SAFE covers more ground than most cleaning certifications. The aquatic toxicity screen is especially relevant: cleaning products go down the drain in volume, and surfactants are one of the most significant sources of aquatic contamination from household use. **Personal care for chemically sensitive individuals.** The banned list covers fragrance components, preservatives, and UV filters at a level of specificity that "fragrance-free" or "natural" label claims do not match. **When GOTS or OEKO-TEX is more relevant:** For textiles — bedding, towels, clothing — where the priority is auditing the full manufacturing chain from fiber to finished product, [GOTS certification](/articles/what-is-gots-certification) covers more ground. GOTS follows the fabric through spinning, dyeing, finishing, and assembly, and audits every facility in that chain. MADE SAFE evaluates the end product's ingredient list but doesn't audit the dye house that processed the fabric. If supply chain traceability is the primary concern, GOTS or OEKO-TEX Standard 100 is the stronger standard. If the full ingredient evaluation and ecological harm screen matter more — particularly for personal care or baby products — MADE SAFE adds value neither of those provides. ## The Honest Limitation: Smaller Brand Footprint MADE SAFE has fewer certified brands than GOTS or OEKO-TEX. Both of those standards originated in Europe with decades of adoption in European manufacturing, and a brand sourcing certified textiles today can draw from a large established supply network. MADE SAFE was founded in the United States in 2015 and has grown primarily in the natural and independent personal care space. In practice: a search for MADE SAFE-certified shampoo returns certified options. A search for MADE SAFE-certified sheets returns a much smaller selection than the same search filtered by GOTS or OEKO-TEX. This is worth knowing before you use MADE SAFE as a shopping filter. The standard is rigorous — it's just not yet widespread. The brand and product directory at [madesafe.org](https://madesafe.org) is updated as brands pass certification; it's the most accurate current inventory. ## How to Verify a Claim Any brand claiming MADE SAFE should appear in the certified brand directory at [madesafe.org](https://madesafe.org). The directory lists specific certified products by brand — searchable by product type or brand name. Phrases that don't constitute verification: * **"Made with safe ingredients"** — a marketing phrase, not a reference to the certification. * **"MADE SAFE inspired"** — not certified. * **"Meets MADE SAFE standards"** — self-declared, not independently verified. Only the MADE SAFE seal on the product label, confirmed by the product appearing in the madesafe.org directory, counts as verification. A note on scope: MADE SAFE certifies specific products, not entire brand lines. A brand may carry some MADE SAFE-certified products alongside conventional ones in the same line. Check the product, not just the brand. **Sources:** 1. [MADE SAFE Certification Program — madesafe.org](https://madesafe.org) 2. [EWG Verified Program — Environmental Working Group](https://www.ewg.org/ewg-verified) 3. [Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxic (PBT) Chemicals — U.S. EPA](https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca/persistent-bioaccumulative-and-toxic-pbt-chemicals) 4. [Global Organic Textile Standard Version 7.0 — Global Standard e.V.](https://global-standards.org) --- Nontoxic Nook is an independent guide: every listed product cleared the published criteria at https://nontoxicnook.com/our-promise. This mirror links only to our own pages; affiliate disclosure: https://nontoxicnook.com/affiliate-disclosure.