Cleancult products are generally low-toxicity, built around simple plant-based ingredients like saponified coconut oil and essential oils. But “non-toxic” isn’t a regulated term, and not every Cleancult formula is as clean as the brand’s marketing suggests. Some products contain preservatives and surfactants that raise moderate safety concerns, and the brand’s scores from independent safety databases reflect that mixed picture.
What’s Actually in Cleancult Products
Cleancult’s simplest formulas are impressively short. The lemongrass liquid dish soap, for example, contains just three ingredients: saponified coconut oil, natural lemongrass essential oil blend, and rosemary extract. The grapefruit basil hand soap is similarly minimal, with saponified coconut oil, saponified olive oil, potassium soap, citric acid, vitamin E, salt, aloe vera gel, and an essential oil blend. No synthetic fragrances, no dyes, no long chemical names most people can’t pronounce.
The laundry detergent tells a different story. Cleancult’s concentrated liquid laundry formula (even the fragrance-free version) includes methylisothiazolinone and benzisothiazolinone. These are synthetic preservatives used to prevent bacterial growth in water-based products. They’re common in cleaning products, but they’re also among the more controversial preservatives in the industry. Methylisothiazolinone in particular has been flagged by dermatology organizations in Europe as a significant contact allergen, and the European Commission restricted its use in leave-on skin products back in 2016. In a rinse-off cleaning product like laundry detergent, exposure is lower, but it’s worth knowing these ingredients are there if you have sensitive skin or were expecting a fully “natural” formula.
The laundry detergent also contains sodium coco-sulfate and laureth-7, both surfactants (the compounds that do the actual cleaning). Sodium coco-sulfate is derived from coconut oil and is sometimes marketed as a gentler alternative to sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), though it’s chemically similar. The brand states its products are always made without SLS, SLES, phthalates, phosphates, dyes, and parabens.
How Cleancult Scores on Independent Safety Ratings
The Environmental Working Group, which independently rates cleaning products on a scale from A (lowest concern) to F (highest concern), gives Cleancult’s Natural Liquid Dish Soap in Lemongrass a C rating. That’s a middle-of-the-road score, not a top performer. For context, EWG’s ratings factor in ingredient transparency, potential health hazards, and environmental impact. A C doesn’t mean a product is dangerous, but it does mean it didn’t meet the criteria for the organization’s lowest-concern categories.
EWG’s database doesn’t currently list ratings for Cleancult’s laundry detergent, so there’s no independent score available for the products with the more complex ingredient lists. The hand soap formulas, with their shorter and simpler ingredient lists, would likely fare better, though they haven’t been individually scored either.
The “Non-Toxic” Claim in Context
No government agency regulates the word “non-toxic” on cleaning product labels. A brand can use the term as long as the product doesn’t meet the legal definition of “toxic” under federal hazardous substances law, which is a very low bar. A product can contain skin irritants, allergens, and synthetic preservatives and still legally be called non-toxic.
Cleancult’s dish soap and hand soap formulas genuinely rely on plant-derived cleaning agents. Saponified coconut oil is essentially soap made by combining coconut oil with an alkaline solution. It’s one of the oldest and simplest cleaning agents available, and it breaks down readily in the environment. These products are about as straightforward as commercial cleaning products get.
The laundry and some multi-surface formulas, however, use a wider range of synthetic ingredients. That doesn’t automatically make them harmful. Sodium coco-sulfate is considered a mild surfactant. Enzyme blends (protease, amylase, mannanase) are biological compounds that break down protein, starch, and gum-based stains, and they’re generally well-tolerated. But the inclusion of isothiazolinone preservatives puts these products in a different category than the soap-and-essential-oil simplicity of the dish soap.
Cruelty-Free and Environmental Claims
Cleancult has held Leaping Bunny certification since 2019, which means the brand has committed to eliminating animal testing at every stage of product development, including ingredient sourcing. Leaping Bunny is considered the gold standard for cruelty-free verification because it requires supplier audits, not just a brand’s self-reported claim.
On the environmental side, the picture is less clear. Cleancult’s safety data sheet for its mandarin liquid dish soap lists “no information available” for ecotoxicity, biodegradability, bioaccumulative potential, and soil mobility. That’s not unusual for smaller brands (full environmental testing is expensive), but it means the brand’s eco-friendly marketing isn’t backed by published environmental data for its formulas. The individual ingredients, particularly coconut-derived surfactants and essential oils, are generally considered biodegradable based on existing research on those compounds.
Which Cleancult Products Are Cleanest
If your priority is avoiding synthetic chemicals, Cleancult’s product line is not uniform. The safest bets are the dish soap and hand soap, which use short, plant-based ingredient lists with no synthetic preservatives or surfactants. These formulas are close to what you’d get if you made soap at home from coconut oil.
The laundry detergent and some other formulas include ingredients that are standard in conventional cleaning products but wouldn’t pass muster with stricter “non-toxic” definitions used by organizations like EWG or Made Safe. If you’re shopping specifically to avoid synthetic preservatives like isothiazolinones, read the ingredient list on each individual Cleancult product rather than trusting the brand name alone. The range between their simplest and most complex formulas is significant.