Walk down the cleaning aisle of any store and you'll see a wall of green leaves, the word "natural," and labels promising the product is "plant-powered" or "eco-friendly." Almost none of these terms are regulated. A product can call itself "natural" while still containing synthetic fragrance, ammonia, or undisclosed preservatives. That's exactly the gap the EWG Verified mark was created to close.
Who is EWG, anyway?
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit research organization that's spent decades evaluating the safety of everyday products, from food to sunscreen to, yes, cleaning supplies. Their cleaning product database has become one of the most trusted independent resources for anyone trying to figure out what's actually in the bottle.
What it takes to get the mark
Unlike a lot of green labeling, EWG Verified isn't something a brand can just slap on their packaging. To earn it, a product has to meet a specific set of criteria:
- Full ingredient disclosure. Every ingredient must be listed, including the ones hiding behind "fragrance" on most labels.
- No ingredients on EWG's "unacceptable" list. This excludes known carcinogens, reproductive toxins, and other high-concern chemicals.
- Manufacturing transparency. Brands must demonstrate good manufacturing practices, not just a clean ingredient list on paper.
- No animal testing, in line with EWG's broader standards.
In other words, it's one of the only labels where "verified" actually means a third party checked the work, rather than the brand self-reporting.
Why this matters for a cleaning service
When you hire a cleaning service, you're inviting products into every room of your home, on the surfaces your kids do homework on, where your dog naps, where you prepare food. "We use eco-friendly products" is a sentence we could say without it meaning anything. EWG Verified is one of the few ways a client can independently confirm we're not just talking about it.
It's a big part of why we built our entire kit around products like castile soap, hydrogen peroxide, citric acid, and baking soda, several of which carry the EWG Verified mark directly. You can see exactly which ingredients we use, what they do, and which certifications they carry on our ingredients page. No vague "proprietary blend" language anywhere.
It's not just about the products you can see
One thing people don't always think about: certifications like this matter most in homes where people spend the most concentrated time indoors. We work with a lot of clients in Silver Lake and Los Feliz, where smaller lot sizes and older homes often mean less square footage per person and tighter indoor air circulation. In Culver City, where many homes double as home offices, people are breathing that indoor air for eight-plus hours a day, every day.
In all of these cases, the cumulative exposure from cleaning products adds up faster than people expect, which is exactly the kind of thing a verification standard like EWG's is designed to catch.
How to spot the difference yourself
Next time you're shopping (or just curious about what's already under your sink), here's a quick gut check:
- Look for a full ingredient list. If a product won't tell you what's in it, that's information in itself.
- Search the EWG database for the specific product, not just the brand.
- Be skeptical of "fragrance-free" claims that don't also disclose what replaced the fragrance.
- Remember that "natural" is not a certification. It's a marketing word with no legal definition.
See it for yourself
If you'd like to know exactly what's being used in your home, every time, take a look at our ingredients page or get an instant quote and ask us anything. Transparency is kind of the whole point.
