Mother cleaning up and wipes the baby buttocks by wet tissue
By Maia, President
UPDATED: JUNE 2017
I didn’t intend to use non-toxic baby wipes at all, and assumed that in addition to exclusive cloth diaper usage, I’d be employing a washcloth and warm water at changing time.
Um, yeah. As soon as I experienced the convenience of the disposable wipe, wringing out poopy rags was a thing of the past.
Because of the frequency with which we use baby wipes, the fact that they are used on the most delicate area of a baby, and the fact that we don’t wash the area off after use, I think it is imperative that we choose truly non-toxic baby wipes.
In terms of the environment, no disposable wipe–including the “eco-friendly” ones I will recommend below–is a green choice. Only water and a washcloth can be considered truly eco-friendly.
My Top Pick for Best Non-Toxic Baby Wipes
Like everyone who tries Jackson Reece wipes, I was instantly hooked. Not only are they nontoxic and earth-friendlier, but they have the perfect amount of moisture. Even with kids out of diapers, I still keep these around for wiping hands and faces on the go.
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If you are like me and have a hard time depriving yourself of the convenience of disposable baby wipes, your best bet is to avoid anything scented, since “fragrance” or “parfum” almost always means pthlalates (known endocrine disruptors). Additionally, many conventional wipes contain parabens, and some also contain phenoxyethanol, a suspected carcinogen. In particular, “natural” or “organics” wipes might contain phenoxyethanol as a preservative.
In addition to the ingredients you’ll see listed on the side of a package of wipes, there are a number of other chemicals that may be included—contaminants and byproducts of the production process for some of the ingredients that go into the wipes. For example:
Since Felix was born in 2009, a bunch of new brands of biodegradable wipes have popped up—and they are remarkably effective, superior in terms of earth-friendliness (ideally, they should be flushed or composted), and safer than other “natural” brands of wipes. Most aren’t reviewed by Skin Deep, but I’ve researched the ingredients and explain any concerns below.
A few companies produce natural liquid solutions (some with accompanying cloths), to use in place of baby wipes, but I don’t see why you wouldn’t just use water and a washcloth if you were going this route. Should you want to purchase one such eco-friendly solution, this is a safe option.
As for ready-made baby wipes, read on.
Babo Botanicals products are produced on a certified organic farm in upstate New York, and are made in small batches. Babo utilizes a Certified Organic Nutri-Soothe™ Blend, which is a mix of chamomile, calendula, kudzu, and watercress, rich in vitamin A, C and D, and which was developed to deliver maximum nutrients, protection and moisturization. None of Babo’s products contain sulfates, parabens, phthalates, synthetic fragrances, 1,4-dioxane, formaldehyde-releasers, or propylene glycol.
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Bum Boosa Baby Wipes are made of bamboo (another renewable resource), and are biodegradable. They are also soft and smell nice (scented with only essential oils). They contain polysorbate 20, but this emulsifier scores only a 1 on Skin Deep. Citric acid is perhaps more concerning, but since it’s only present in trace amounts and evidence of its toxicity is lacking, I don’t think it’s a big concern. You can buy these wipes in bulk on the Bum Boosa website or Amazon, and they are the most expensive of the Good Stuff.
Elements Naturals Baby Wipes are available at Diapers.com as well as Whole Foods, which is convenient (although they are not available on Amazon). They are made from a product called Ingeo™, which, according to the Elements Naturals website, is “the world’s first man-made fiber from annually renewable resources.” Of course, we have to assume that Ingeo itself (a biopolymer or “natural plastic”) is safe, and the scientific consensus seems to be that it is–although studies are lacking. Of more concern is the phenoxyethanol in these wipes. I like the scentlessness of these wipes, but found that they were sort of hard to get out of the box (they don’t seem to feed out of the slot as well as other brands). You’ll pay around 8¢ a wipe.
It seems that Elements Naturals has gone out of business.
Jackson Reece Herbal and Biodegradable Wipes are made from wood pulp (a renewable resource), and have a nice short list of ingredients. These come in scented (essential oils) or unscented varieties, and while they are a slightly pricier option than more widely-available wipes, Jackson Reeces wipes are big and thick, so I find that I go through fewer of them than other brands. I converted to Jackson Reece wipes 3 years ago and now cannot tolerate any other brand of wipe–to me, they offer the perfect level of wetness (I found Earth’s Best to be too sudsy to the point that I wanted to wipe down my baby with a towel afterwards, and other brands to be too dry.) Jackson Reece wipes are made in the UK and hard to find here, so we are thrilled to now offer them in The Good Stuff Store!
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Some of Honest’s products are Good Stuff and some are not. Their wipes fall into the former category. The only potentially concerning ingredient they contain is silver dihydrogen citrate (which they use as a preservative), but Honest claims that the silver they are using does not contain problematic nanoparticles. Honest wipes are not cheap (at around 7 cents per wipe), but they perform well. You can get Honest on their website as well as on Amazon.
Joonya’s founder recently sent me some wipes to try, and even though I no longer have any kids in diapers, I loved the performance of these wipes for cleaning hands and faces (I also tried them a few times on my 3-year-old’s tush after trips to the toilet). Joonya definitely wins for nicest looking packaging, and I liked the amount of wetness and lack of suds in Joonya wipes. In terms of the ingredients in these wipes–nothing concerns me. They use decyl glucoside as a surfactant and silver dihygrogen citrate as a preservative (which carries an EWG score of just 1).
Made Of Soothing Baby Wipes are free of alcohol and other skin irritants, Made Of’s wipes are also independently tested free of microbes, heavy metals, parabens, and more.
For those of you who are Thrive shoppers, you’ll be happy to know that their wipes are Good Stuff (although they are not biodegradable and shouldn’t be flushed). I’m not worried about any of the ingredients in these wipes, and because of my partnership with Thrive, you can receive $60 off of your first three orders with this link.
UPDATE as of March 2018: Thrive added benzyl alcohol, so I can no longer call these truly non-toxic baby wipes.
If you are a regular reader of mine, you know I often categorize BabyGanics as Sneaky Stuff. Their wipes, however, are actually not bad, with sodium benzoate being the only questionable ingredients. The wipes are actually a better bet than Seventh Generation in my opinion, although still behind all the Best Stuff and Good Stuff above.
Earth’s Best baby wipes are comprised of essentially the same ingredients as Seventh Generation’s wipes, and in addition they contain alkyl polyglycoside, a substance that has not been tested for safety as far as I can tell (I couldn’t find any studies.) Many people prefer these over the Seventh Generation wipes because they are sudsier. They are available everywhere, including Amazon, where you’ll pay about 5¢ a wipe if you buy in bulk.
I have used Seventh Generation’s baby wipes, but I don’t like that they contain sodium hydroxymethylglycinate (no, I didn’t just have a seizure while typing–that is actually how it’s spelled). This ingredient has not been assessed for safety, although it scores just a 2 out of 10 on Skin Deep. These wipes also contain sodium benzoate, an ingredient I avoid whenever possible. Basically, Seventh Generation’s wipes are just on the border of being Sneaky Stuff, but they are okay in a pinch. These wipes are widely available, including on Amazon, where you can get them for about 5¢ a wipe if you buy in bulk.
June 2016 Update: Seventh Generation no longer contain sodium hydroxymethylglycinate. One less thing to worry about!
Unsurprisingly, Huggies baby wipes are some of the worst. Even their unscented wipes contain a number of questionable ingredients–including numerous parabens and DMDM hydantoin, a known human immune system toxicant–so don’t be fooled by the natural-sounding varieties (Cucumber and Green Tea, for example). I can barely stomach the scent of these wipes. Pampers is another brand that just doesn’t make any safe wipes, despite their numerous varieties; while a few score only moderate hazard on Skin Deep, the majority are ranked high hazard, thanks to parabens, fragrance, and benzyl alcohol. Even their “Sensitive” label should be avoided, as they include PEG chemicals, sodium benzoate, and other nasties. Oh, and the wipes themselves are made of a plastic blend.
Kirkland wipes, which seem to be many people’s favorite, do have an improved formula as of 2014. Most notably, they now use a safer preservatives and have taken out PEG chemicals and propylene glycol. Still, I don’t like phenoxyethanol or sodium benzoate, so Kirkland wipes are still Bad Stuff in my book–just slightly less bad than they were before.
Burt’s Bees Baby Bee Wipes contain phenoxythanol, sodium benzoate, and immunotoxic benzyl alcohol.
Naty Eco Wipes call themselves “100% eco,” which is a meaningless statement (especially from a brand with a bunch of synthetic ingredients in it!). It’s worth noting that Skin Deep’s rating of these wipes is wrong because Naty has changed their ingredients to be somewhat safer. These wipes actually aren’t THAT bad, but they do contain sodium benzoate and benzoic acid, both of which score a 3 on Skin Deep’s hazard scale.
Water Wipes have been the biggest headache to review and categorize! We used to call them Good Stuff, but they now have disclosed that their wipes indeed contain benzalkonium chloride. I will be honest: I’m not personally worried about the teeny tiny amount of this chemical that’s found in “trace amounts in these wipes.” If I had a pack of these wipes, I would feel fine using them. That said, this ingredient is definitely #badstuff, and so it’s not something we can give our stamp of approval.
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View Comments
Hi there! Thank you for being so thorough in your evaluations and guidance! I, too, am on the hunt for the good stuff, but I also do try to keep my budget in mind since we are a single family income. Could you advice me on the Huggies Frangrance free "one wipe and done" wipes? The ingredients are as follows: "water, aloe leaf extract, caprylyl glycol, sodium benzoate, coco-betaine, polysorabte 20, malic acid, sodium citrate, tocopheryl acetate.
Thank you!
Melissa
Melissa-
I'm so sorry for the delayed response! I only now noticed your comment. Those wipes don't sound so bad--sodium benzoate is an ingredient that I lot of people worry about, but which I think is of relatively small risk. Overall, this sounds like a better bet than conventional Huggies!
You should review Clearly Herbal.
Thanks! We will look into it.
I've been using Earth's Best sensitive wipes that I bought from Amazon and really like them (purple packaging, though sodium benzoate is in the ingredients). We ran out and and I found some in a Babies R Us but it was in different packaging a tan color with purple stripe. These are so different, the smell is funny to me (on packaging ingredients include polysorbate 20 and phenoxyethanol). Did they change their formula recently? Which one is the new one and which is the old? Which one is better? Just confused at this point.
Hi Mella-
I'm not aware of a formula change. Have you tried Jackson Reece wipes? These are the only ones I've been really happy with.
Hello,
I was wondering if I should be concerned of Jackson Reece Wipes scoring 2 on EWG website. Thank you for such great advices:)
Hi there! EWG considers ylang-ylang oil and potassium sorbate to be low-risk ingredients. My research leads me to believe that both are safe. Thanks for asking, and for your vigilance!
Hi, Which of the the Good Stuff wipes would you recommend if I am going to be using a wipe warmer?? I see a few reviews where a warmer dries them up quickly or they could start getting mold on them......thanks for your recommendation!
Hi Natalia-
I would personally feel okay using Jackson Reece wipes in a warmer, but definitely it's a good idea to be on the lookout for mold. I haven't tried a warmer myself.
Are Bambo Nature wipes on the "good stuff" list? Ingredients: Aqua, Glycerin, Sodium Laureth-11 Carboxylate, Laureth-10, sodium Benzoate, Lactic Acid, Glycereth-17 Cocoate, Potassium Sorbate, Allantoin. Thanks for all your help!
Hi Natalia-
Unfortunately, no. We sell Bambo diapers, but have chosen not to carry their wipes as I don't like some of the ingredients they use and think the wipes listed above are better.
Have you taken a look at Bambo wipes? We love their diapers but was wondering about the wipes. We are currently using Earth's Bests but it seems like they changed the shape/material so you might want to also recheck their ingredients. The new shape material is more flimsy (in my opinion) and isn't as nice as the bigger former version.
We've chosen not to carry Bambo wipes because I actually don't like some of the ingredients they use:(
What about Bloom Baby wipes – sensitive?
I recently saw them at Sam’s Club and was wondering whether they are natural and good as they claim to be. Also, I just stocked up on Honest wipes for my baby (after reading your blog), but these Bloom Baby Wipes seem good as well - Or am I mistaken?
Thanks much :)
I haven't used them and can't find a place on their website where they list ingredients?
here is a link http://www.samsclub.com/sams/bloom-baby-premium-luxury-jumbo-wipes-for-sensitive-skin-640-ct-travel-clutch/prod19911342.ip
try to zoom in to see the ingredients.
They look okay--the only once I'm not psyched about is phenoxyethanol.
What are your thoughts on the Amazon elements wipes? http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00M4M314Y/ref=mp_s_a_1_5_a_it?qid=1456929907&sr=8-5&keywords=water+wipes#rpdAPlus_1456929982239
Also, the reviewer comments suggest Costco has changed their wipes again. Are they any better?
http://m.costco.com/Kirkland-Signature™-Baby-Wipes-900Ct..product.11489346.html
Neither is Good Stuff, unfortunately:(. (Phenoxyethanol, sodium benzoate, etc.)