HAIN Hain Celestial Group Inc

One of the country's largest makers of natural shampoos and skin cleansers said it is reformulating dozens of products and dropping claims that they don't contain sodium lauryl sulfate, a cleaning agent commonly used in mainstream brands.

Hain Celestial Group Inc., like upstart Honest Company Inc., has long said its products have no "harsh chemicals" such as sodium lauryl sulfate, or SLS, that could irritate some people's skin.

Instead, some of their products use an ingredient called sodium coco sulfate, which the companies say is a milder cleaning agent.

The Wall Street Journal last year commissioned independent laboratory tests of several consumer products containing sodium coco sulfate, including Honest laundry detergent and Earth's Best baby shampoo, which is made by Hain Celestial. Testing performed by Chemir, a division of EAG Inc., found the products contained more than trace amounts of SLS. Multiple chemists told the Journal that sodium coco sulfate is a blend of cleaning agents that contains roughly 50% SLS.

The Journal shared the lab findings with both companies last fall. Honest disputed the test results for its detergent. Hain Celestial said last week that Earth's Best "does not add" SLS to its products but that the company was changing its labels to increase transparency.

In an interview Thursday Julie Marchant-Houle, the company's general manager for personal care, said Hain Celestial had begun to review the issue last spring and decided in November, after being contacted by the Journal, to remove its "no SLS" claims on products that contain sodium coco sulfate.

Ms. Marchant-Houle said Hain Celestial also plans to reformulate the few dozen products the company makes that contain sodium coco sulfate, with the goal of replacing the ingredient with other cleaning agents.

"We have no concerns about sodium coco sulfate, but we are trying to respond to consumers' preferences," she said, adding that consumers "have a general concern with sulfates," and often don't distinguish between the two compounds.

In addition to Earth's Best, Hain Celestial's personal-care brands include Jason, Alba Botanica and Avalon Organics. Its brands are sold at national retailers including Whole Foods Markets Inc. and major drugstore chains, as well as at many small retailers target consumers seeking natural products.

Earth's Best sells a wide range of baby products. Its biggest business is baby food, which isn't involved in the SLS issue. The brand also sells diapers, skin lotions, shampoos and body washes for infants and toddlers.

Not all makers of natural household and personal-care products avoid SLS. In addition to its presence in mainstream brands, the cleaning agent is an ingredient in detergent from Seventh Generation Inc., dish soap from Mrs. Meyers, a unit of S.C. Johnson & Son, and hand soap from Method Products PBC. Many companies that use SLS say it is safe when used in properly formulated products.

There aren't any regulatory guidelines for what makes household and personal-care products "natural." Many companies have taken to calling their products natural if key ingredients are derived from plant-based materials, even if those ingredients have been chemically processed. Sales of products that make natural claims have been growing faster than sales of their mainstream rivals.

Hain Celestial uses sodium coco sulfate in several Earth's Best baby-care products, some Alba Botanica shampoos and a facial scrub, and some of its Jason shampoos and body washes. Their containers say they have no SLS.

The website for Jason products said it chose to use sodium coco sulfate in some products because "it is plant-derived, meets our high standard for gentleness, and creates a luxurious sudsy lather during use."

The Jason brand said on its website that coconut oil, from which sodium coco sulfate is derived, naturally contains lauryl alcohol, which is what is used to make sodium lauryl sulfate. As such, "there may be some amount of sodium lauryl sulfate" in Jason's products containing sodium coco sulfate. Therefore, the brand's website says, it would be more accurate to remove the no-SLS claims from the brand's packaging, and it has begun that process.

Products with the new labels are expected to hit store shelves by this summer, and will gradually replace products with the existing labels.

The formulation changes won't be ready until later in the year or in 2017, because it isn't easy to find a substitute that cleans well while producing a bubbly lather that people like, said Hain Celestial's Ms. Marchant-Houle.

Hain Celestial, which is based in Lake Success, N.Y., and owns dozens of other organic or natural-food brands including Arrowhead Mills flours and Terra chips, doesn't break out sales of individual brands. Its personal-care products business last year generated around $142 million in sales, or roughly 5% of the company's total sales.

The Journal had two independent labs conduct tests on Honest's laundry detergent and both found the product contained significant amounts of SLS.

Honest, which also sells diapers and other consumer products, has disputed the test results and says its products don't contain SLS.

Honest disagreed with the methods used by the Journal's labs and said its own testing found no SLS in its detergent. Honest also said it relied on assurances from its suppliers that there was no SLS in the product. Labels on Honest detergent jugs found on store shelves still say the products are "Honestly free of" SLS.

During the Journal's reporting, Honest made changes to the wording on its website, including revising the description of its "Honestly Free Guarantee." It now says the products are "Honestly made without" SLS and other ingredients it has banned.

Honest said it plans to change its product labels to match the wording on its website but has no plans to reformulate its detergent. Honest, which is based in Santa Monica, Calif., didn't respond to a request for comment Sunday.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 03, 2016 21:05 ET (01:05 GMT)

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