At Naïf, our motto is, ‘Good care, worry-free’. This means that we worry about the right ingredients, so you don’t have to. All with the goal to be able to be a little more naive when it comes to shopping for personal care products. Given that, we do understand you might want to know why we choose to use certain ingredients, and which ones we purposely don’t use. Below you find an overview of ingredients we use and why, which ingredients we don’t use, followed by a detailed list of ingredients per Naïf product. Still something unclear? Don’t hesitate to shoot us a message, we’re happy to answer all your questions!

Ingredients we love

Natural oils from seeds and nuts. Like macadamia, sweet almond, coconut oil, jojoba- and flaxseed oil. Nut oils are very similar to the skin’s own oils and are very nourishing when added to creams, serums and lotions.

Cotton and grains - like cottonseed extract and wheat protein. Both of these aid in keeping the skin nice and moisturized, but also help strengthen the skin and the hair. They’re pretty great at cleansing too! We use cottonseed and wheat in our wash- and hair products. P.S. They are naturally gluten free, so no need to worry about that!

Fruits - we use oils derived from all kinds of fruits like avocado, but also apricot and argan fruit. They contain lots of vitamins and work revitalizing. We mostly use these ingredients in creams and balms. We can’t find these ingredients close to home, which is why we are extra careful in choosing our partners to make sure we source is fair and sustainable.

Minerals - we use zinc oxide, a powder derived when zinc is processed. Zinc oxide has cooling, heeling and skin-protecting characteristics which we use as the base of our mineral sunscreens and diaper cream. We also use calcite. These are lime pellets that are purified from Dutch drinking water. We use this circular ingredient in our face scrub as an exfoliant. 

Bis-ethylhexyloxyphenol methoxyphenyl triazine - a new generation, non-mineral UV filter that protects against UVA and UVB radiation. Bis-ethylhexyloxyphenol methoxyphenyl triazine is also known under the names Tinosorb S and Bemotrizinol. It differs from other non-mineral UV filters, because bis-ethylhexyloxyphenol methoxyphenyl triazine does not penetrate the skin, but forms a layer on top of it that absorbs UV radiation from the skin’s surface immediately after application with minimal chance of skin irritation. Even in small quantities bis-ethylhexyloxyphenol methoxyphenyl triazine is very effective, which makes it very suitable for products that want to offer a high SPF. That’s why we chose to add this UV filter to our mineral sunscreen formula, as a booster. It enhances the zinc oxide so we can guarantee high protection without having to compromise its user friendliness. Besides that all, it’s also one of the safest UV filters out there.

Ingredients we don’t love

Mineral oils - also petroleum or paraffin. These create a layer on top of the skin that can block the pores, blocking the moisture- and oxygen circulation of the skin. Also, mineral oil comes from the fossil industry. An industry that we want to stay away from, as far as possible. 

Microplastics are tiny plastic particles that are smaller than 5mm. They are added to make products thicker and easier to apply. But, through personal care products, they end up in nature and subsequently also in our food chain. Not very sustainable, we think.

Allergen perfumes or essential oils. Natural perfumes or natural oils contain allergens. These can cause allergic reactions. That’s why we use a milde, synthetic perfume that is free from the 26 most common allergens. This perfume makes you and your mini smell great, without having to worry about the effects on the skin.

PEG and synthetic emulgators are used a lot in cosmetic creams and oil bases. They can be contaminated with 1,4-dioxane and are not suitable to use on damaged skin.

Ingredients like SLS or SLES are foaming agents. They are frequently used in shampoos because of their cleansing and foaming characteristics. However, they can irritate the skin and the eyes, they can cause hair loss or cause allergic reactions (source: RIVM). In addition, they cleanse a little too well: they also strip the skin from its natural oils, something we want to avoid!

Synthetic preservatives - like parabens - are ingredients that are added to products to prevent them from going bad (allowing fungus and bacteria to grow). Preservatives are incredibly important, because products that have been infected with fungus or bacteria can lead to skin irritation. However, in the last few years there have been discussions about the safety of parabens. Some research shows that parabens can disrupt the hormonal balance. It is important to note here that no conclusive evidence has been found so far (source: RIVM). At Naïf we take no risk however, and choose not to have any parabens in our products.