My opinion on the EWG's guide to cleaning products

The short version

A lot of you have asked what we think of the Environmental Working Group's cleaning products guide. It is set up much like their sunscreen guide — and, as with that one, we do not always agree with the top recommendations.

We want to be clear up front: we appreciate the EWG enormously. This is a huge undertaking. They have built a wealth of information, and when it comes to decoding a cleaning product ingredient list, we get dizzy too. We would not have been able to take this on; it needs a team.

We also want to reinforce what we have always said: be your own detective. Guides and tools exist to make life easier, and they do help — we try to be a source of that help ourselves. But look at everything with a discriminating eye, including us.

What we love about it

The scale, first. The amount of work in that resource is tremendous.

More usefully: the ingredient explanations are excellent — a genuinely good rundown of what compounds are and why to avoid them. And they are willing to look hard at ingredients people assume are fine and conclude they are not ideal. Borax is a good example: they grade it an F, which is worth knowing before you build a DIY cleaning routine on it.

That ingredient knowledge is the part that transfers. Learn why a compound is a concern and you can read any label for the rest of your life.

What we did not love

Much like the sunscreen report, we think it misses on a few things and nails the rest.

When the guide came out we went to look up a product we use often. It was rated a D. We were floored. How had we got it so wrong? I try so hard, only to find out something I thought was safe is a D. UGH. I hate being safe. Forget it, I'm using Windex from now on. (We have this tantrum periodically. You can probably relate.)

Once we got a grip, we dug further — which is the part not everyone does.

We pulled the ingredient list off the actual product label and looked for the "ethoxylated compounds" that had earned the giant red F. They were not there. The listed ingredients did not match the label, and not marginally — they were well off. We tried a second product and a third, from a different company, and found the same gap on both. Some products we checked were accurate. Not all of them were.

What that paragraph is, and what it is not

We want to be straight about the standing of the story you just read, because we are using it to criticize somebody else's work.

It is undated, and we did not record which products. It is what we found when the guide launched, written up at the time, and we cannot hand you a product name, a date, or a link to check it against. By the standard this site now holds itself to, that is an anecdote and not evidence, and you should weigh it accordingly. We are leaving it here rather than quietly deleting it, because it is the honest history of what this page has said for years — but it is not something you can verify, and we are not going to dress it up as though it were.

We tried to re-run it properly for this update and could not. The plan was to take one named, currently listed cleaning product, put EWG's ingredient list beside the manufacturer's own current panel, and publish both with today's date so you could check our working. EWG's site blocks automated access, so that re-check is an open item on this page rather than a result. When we do it, it will appear here with the product named.

Here is a check you can run today, on the label rather than on the database. We read Mrs. Meyer's own product page for its mint multi-surface cleaner on September 10, 2026, and the ingredient list it publishes ends: "...Tetrasodium Glutamate Diacetate, Sodium Sulfate, Methylisothiazolinone, Benzisothiazolinone." Two preservatives, named, on a product most people file under "the nice-smelling natural one." Nothing about that is hidden, and nothing about it requires a database — it required opening the page. That is the entire argument of this article, and it is checkable in a way our 2012 anecdote is not.

The second issue is the recommendations. There is deep detail about how companies were researched — animal testing commitments and so on — and then Top Rated products that contain ingredients we would avoid. We found it hard to follow how a Lysol fragrance product makes that list. That observation carries the same caveat as the one above: it is undated, and the listing may well have changed in the years since.

In fairness: the EWG allows companies to update their ingredient lists and be re-evaluated, so the database should improve over time — which is also a reason an old complaint like ours ages badly and should not be treated as a current finding. Our biggest worry is not accuracy in the abstract — it is that information overload discourages people from trying at all.

Where we are conflicted, said out loud

SafeMama recommends products elsewhere on this site partly on the strength of the EWG Verified mark, including a top pick on our deodorant cheat sheet. So we are in the position of criticizing EWG's database on one page and leaning on EWG's certification on another, and you are entitled to know that before you weigh anything above.

Two things make those less inconsistent than they look. They are different programs: the Guide to Healthy Cleaning is a database EWG compiles about products, while EWG Verified is a program a brand applies and pays to be in, which requires it to disclose its full formulation — fragrance included — and avoid everything on EWG's unacceptable and restricted lists. And we treat the mark as one signal rather than a verdict, which is exactly what this page argues you should do with the grades too. It also means an unmarked product has usually not failed anything; most never applied.

How to actually use it

Like Skin Deep and the sunscreen report before it, there will be a level of inaccuracy, simply because of the scale of what is being cataloged. It takes years and many people to collect that information and make it readable.

So our advice is the same as always: this is a good place to START, and not a place to END your research. And yes — you do have to research your products. We cannot get over that either, but until we have better chemical reform and regulation, this is the job we have.

Concretely, that means: read the label on the product in your hand, use the guide to understand ingredients rather than to pick winners, and cross-check anything that surprises you before you change what you buy.

"Just make your own!"

We can hear the DIYers already.

Our recommendation is a less is more approach. You really only need a handful of things to keep a home clean, and buying fewer products sidesteps most of the grading problem entirely.

But before you get your DIY on: EWG rates borax (boric acid) an F, which rules out a lot of the homemade dishwasher detergent recipes floating around. We are going to have to get more creative there.