“Clean” claims are ubiquitous in the beauty industry, as the National Advertising Division (NAD) recently recognized, but there is no single definition of what it means to be a “clean” product. Some companies have been challenged for their “clean” claims, and two recent decisions by the NAD and a federal court have shed some light on what a company needs to support a “clean” claim.

First, the NAD itself challenged Amyris Clean Beauty, the manufacturer of Biossance skincare products, as to whether the company could support its claim that its products contain “Clean ingredients and clean formulas—we ban over 2000 ingredients that are known to be toxic to you and the environment.”  Because there is no single meaning of “clean,” the NAD explained that the context of the claim is key. Here, the NAD understood the claim to convey that Amyris products are “clean” because they do not contain thousands of ingredients that are toxic to humans and the environment. However, the company’s prohibited ingredients list included a large number of ingredients that aren’t normally used in cosmetics. That can be misleading under the FTC Green Guides, which provide that an otherwise truthful claim that a product does not contain a substance can still be deceptive if that substance is not normally used in or associated with that category of products. The NAD recommended that Amyris modify the claim to only reflect the ingredients banned that are normally used in beauty products.

Second, a federal district court in New York ruled in favor of Sephora, dismissing a complaint on behalf of a potential class of customers that the company’s “Clean at Sephora” label was false and misleading. Sephora describes its label on its website as meaning that the products are “formulated without parabens, sulfates SLS and SLES, phthalates, mineral oil, formaldehyde, and more.” The plaintiff argued that the label conveys the meaning that products with the label do not contain any synthetic ingredients or ingredients that could cause physical harm or irritation. The court rejected this argument, holding that plaintiffs failed to explain how reasonable consumers could mistake the label to mean that the products didn’t contain any synthetic or harmful ingredients beyond the list specified by Sephora. Since plaintiff also failed to show that products labeled “Clean at Sephora” contained any of the ingredients that Sephora claimed they did not, the court ultimately dismissed the suit.

Using terms that lack a regulatory definition such as “clean” or “natural” can often come with risk because of the potential for a wide array of meanings to consumers. These two cases helpfully suggest that if a company clearly and prominently defines what “clean” means in the context of the claim and ensures that all products labeled “clean” meet that definition, they may have a strong defense to consumers who interpret “clean” differently. In other words, don’t make a mess of your clean claims by failing to properly qualify them!

If you have questions about consumer protection and green marketing claims, contact Vic Westgate and Megan Noonan, our Advertising & Marketing attorneys.