FAQs

Reformulation to maintain among the highest standards has, in fact, been a regular and ongoing process. For example, as a result of multiple reformulations, Johnson's Baby products have been free from parabens, phthalates, 1,4 dioxane and formaldehyde-releasing preservatives since 2015. Now, all our products are even gentler without dyes and sulfates and use more naturally-derived ingredients.

Our products have always been mild and safe. However, we have listened carefully to the opinion of parents, and removed certain ingredients that they told us they didn’t want in their baby products. Here are some of the most important reformulation projects in recent years:

• 2009: globally phthalate-free formulas

• 2013: globally free of formaldehyde-releasing preservatives

• 2015: globally paraben-free formulas

For more than 12 decades we’ve invested the time, money, and effort into creating products that give mom and dad the ultimate peace of mind. With research and technologincal advances, such as formulation technology and digital apps (like Johnson's Baby BEDTIME™ Baby Sleep App), we have also evolved.

• From its very beginning, JOHNSON'S^® BABY has been committed to improving the lives of parents and babies. As part of one of the world’s top healthcare companies, we partner with global health authorities, doctors, nurses, midwives, and leading baby experts to understand the unique needs of babies at every age and stage in diverse areas of the world. As we’ve learned, we’ve also continuously worked on improving our products to better meet these unique needs.

• We have helped advance 90% of publications and peer reviewed literature on healthy baby skin (past 5 years, vs. other leading baby skincare companies), which informs and advances the leading, practice standards in baby skin care, such as the Neonatal Skin Care Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Guideline published by the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN). Our research is shared with everyone, including parents, our competitors and health authorities.

Scientific advancement doesn’t stay still and neither do we. Our researchers are on top of the latest clinical research and JOHNSON’S^® BABY continually updates our formulas based on the science and the kind of experience parents are looking for.

Our pioneering baby care research and rigorous clinical standards shaped understanding of what’s Best for Baby™ around the globe and reset parents’ expectations. For example, our NO MORE TEARS^® formula means that today’s parents don’t have to experience the stress of bath time where a baby cries because soap stings their eyes.

• Previously, our Best for Baby™ Standards focused primarily on clinical standards, such as NO MORE TEARS^® and CLINICALLY PROVEN MILDNESS^®

• Now we have raised the bar further. In addition to rigorous clinical standards, we include consideration of Ages & Stages (i.e. how the needs of baby change as they grow older), and Mom’s preferences (i.e. modified formulas taking into account the kind of performance and ingredients that she desired). For example, the chart below contains descriptions of how standards for skin mildness and cleansing products were raised further, to take into account new research and understanding of ages and stages, as well as mom’s preferences for products.

We knew our products were safe, but we also heard parents’ preferences for fewer ingredients. With that in mind, alongside the latest science, we re-evaluated all of our washes, lotions and haircare products to include the fewest ingredients we could use – while still being gentle and effective. Sometimes it can be easier to formulate with a few more ingredients, just like it can often be easier to explain a point with a few more sentences, but we challenged ourselves to be as simple as possible, without compromising on performance and quality.

• We reconsidered every ingredient in our bottle — nothing was sacred!

• The good news is that Johnson's® Baby already used fewer ingredients in our products than most baby products. Now, we went even further, we reduced the number of ingredients in our portfolio by nearly 60%. Now, the backs of our labels are easier to read and understand.

Striving to make the gentlest baby products in the world isn’t easy. But, when it comes to both safety and innovation, we believe that going above and beyond is all part of a day’s work.

Striving to make the gentlest baby products in the world isn’t easy. But, when it comes to both safety and innovation, we believe that going above and beyond is all part of a day’s work.

Our scientists are parents themselves, and we develop products with the same care and rigor that we want for our own babies and children—with stakes that high, nothing is left to chance.

• We selectively craft our formulations - less than 2% of the cosmetic ingredients used globally meet our standards for purity, safety, gentleness and mildness for baby products.

• We maintain a rigorous safety-assurance process to test ingredients. Only ingredients and ingredient combinations that meet our Best For Baby™ Standards will be used in products that bear the Johnson's® Baby name.

• We deliberately chose to keep fragrance in our products, as our research tells us that multi-sensory experiences, including scents, play a role in happy, healthy baby development. That said, less than 25% of the aroma compounds used in fragranced consumer products meet our strict purity standards and can be considered for our gentle baby products.

Parents told us they no longer wanted dyes in their products – even safe, mild dyes like those in JOHNSON’S^® BABY, so we removed dyes* from all products. This means our iconic baby shampoo is no longer gold and the iconic baby lotion no longer pink.

No, Johnson's® Baby products have always been tested safe.

The ingredients we removed, such as formaldehyde-donor preservatives and parabens, were clinically proven to be safe at the very low levels in our products. For example, eating one apple would have exposed a person to more formaldehyde (which occurs naturally in many foods) than using ten bottles of our previous baby shampoo. We removed these ingredients not because of a safety concern, but because mothers told us they did not want them in baby products.

You can be rest assured that every product from Johnson's® Baby, including those that you may have used years before, is mild and effective when used as directed. Each ingredient that goes into our products is not only tested and evaluated for safety by us, but also meet or exceed government safety requirements in every country where they are sold. We’re always listening to feedback from moms and dads like you, and we’re also monitoring the latest scientific data to make sure our products are mild and gentle.

Independent reviews are important to us and are part of our 5-level safety assurance process. (The below statements are pending confirmation from Michelle Dionne, Global PR)

• As part of our relaunch, we invited independent experts to be part of our ingredient design and policies process. Underwriter’s Laboratory (UL), an independent global safety science company and the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting human health and the environment, had full access to our research, ingredients, standards, and safety testing behind all of our Johnson's® Baby products.

• UL confirmed that Johnson's® Baby Best for Baby^™ standards go far beyond current skincare safety standards and practices.

Overview of the 5-level safety assurance process:

1. Sourcing Raw Materials
Safe products start with safe raw materials. That’s why we thoroughly vet every supplier and only accept materials from vendors that meet our rigorous quality and safety standards.

2. Assessing Ingredients
The ingredients we receive must be assessed and meet the requirements for safe use in personal care products. We dig below the surface to evaluate impurities and review the latest findings from personal care, food and medicine studies.

3. Testing Formulations
Once we create product formulas, we test them with volunteers in a lab setting. Our experts test for every likely issue, including skin and eye irritation. As a result, our safety database includes information on a wide variety of formula reactions that help inform every new formula we make.

4. Monitoring Real-Life Use
We test for ways a consumer might use our products. In addition to the consumers who try our products at home, we also test our products in the lab under several scenarios – extreme heat, cold, humidity and more – to ensure product safety and consistency.

5. Ongoing Evaluation
Our finished product is finally available in your local store, but our work isn’t done. In addition to watching for new information, we listen to your feedback, whether it’s via a customer service call or a social media comment, and make updates when necessary so that every product we make is as safe as it is effective.

Preservatives are critical to prevent mold and bacteria from growing and potentially harming your baby.

With the removal of parabens and formaldehyde-releasers from Johnson's® Baby formulations to address consumer preferences, we turned to an alternative preservative that has also been proven safe and effective: Phenoxyethanol -- safely used in the past and a widely used compound for antimicrobial protection of baby products and adult cosmetics

Less than 2% of the cosmetic ingredients used globally meet our standards for purity, safety, gentleness and mildness for baby products. Any ingredient lacking a documented safety profile or validation from our 5-step safety assurance process will never be used in a JOHNSON'S^® product.

Fragrances used in JOHNSON'S^® products meet or exceed top internationally recognized standards (e.g. International Fragrance Association) and government regulations. Also, our baby fragrances are designed to thoroughly control sources of common and potential allergens, such as those found in essential oils. Our fragrances are now free of fragrance allergens*.

_{* List of fragrance allergens as identified by the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety of the European Commission. 2012.}

Johnson's^® Baby understands that newborns’, infants’, active babies’, and toddlers’ (18-36 months) skin and hair each have unique needs. We reformulated and expanded our product line for these unique milestones, so parents can feel more confident that they are choosing the right product for their child.

1. Newborns and babies are special. In the first year of life, a baby develops through continual experiences of bonding and security. A gentle touch or massage from mom and dad during this stage not only comforts and calms baby, but also helps build emotional connections.

2. As babies grow into toddlers, they become more active and ready to explore. These adventures come with the need for an easy hair care routine that manages tangles and knots. Johnson's^® Baby hair care line delivers a formula gentle enough for a toddler’s scalp and hair.

That said, babies are unique and develop at different speeds and have different needs. Whether or not you stop using a certain product on your baby if they are younger/older than the age/stage on the bottle is a choice you can make with quite a bit of flexibility, depending on how well the current product is still meeting needs and expectations.

More than 90% of the ingredients in our leading products are of natural origin* (based on average cumulative volume of ingredients in washes, lotions and shampoos, using ISO/DIS 16128, water included).

We recognize that many parents want all-natural products for their baby. While many natural ingredients are good for baby’s skin, some are not. At Johnson's^® Baby every ingredient, natural and synthetic, needs to be evaluated for efficacy and safety.

• “Natural” is a powerful claim, originating from the food sector, and it’s increasingly finding its way into a broad array of cosmetic products. But many regulators have not defined the term “natural” and have not established a regulatory definition for it in cosmetic labeling, leading to concerns that the claim could be used in ways that are misleading or deceptive.

• The debate over naturals and chemicals has been oversimplified, to the disservice of parents who are just concerned about what’s safest for their children. The answer is more nuanced; not all natural ingredients are good and not all synthetic ingredients are bad.

• Babies’ skin is up to 30% thinner than an adult’s and during their first year of life2, baby has a weaker skin barrier and therefore a higher exposure to irritants, allergen penetration and infection. As a result, some ingredients that work well for adults are too harsh for babies’ skin.

• As parents, we like natural ingredients, too... but being natural is never more important than being safe. We select our ingredients carefully to ensure our products are gentle, safe and mild for baby’s developing skin and eyes.

_{* Some natural ingredients that may be too harsh for baby’s skin include: limonene, peppermint oils, bitter orange oils or peanut oils}

The following ingredients used in our products are not considered “natural” because they are not directly sourced from nature (some in this list, such as vitamins and citric acid, occur in nature, but can be challenging to extract and formulate into products efficiently. Therefore, synthetic versions are often preferred):

• Preservatives, such as sodium benzoate and phenoxyethanol - critical to prevent mold and bacteria from growing and potentially harming your baby.

• Vitamins and antioxidants - help keep your baby’s skin safe by preventing products from oxidizing and creating free radicals.

• Citric acid and sodium hydroxide – balance the pH levels of our products.

• Emulsifiers and surfactants - needed to mix water with oils that cleanse and moisturize. A few of the phrases parents will see on Johnson's^® Baby label include: decyl glucoside, glyceryl stearate, cetearyl alcohol, sodium cocoyl methyl taurate or potassium cetyl phosphate.

• Skin conditioning agents - help to soothe skin while hair conditioning and antistatic agents help prevent moisture loss and keep hair looking and feeling healthy. A few of the skin-conditioning agents that Johnson's^® Baby products use include glycerin and cocoglycerides.

• Fragrances - help sensorial development and make bath time fun.

_{* Based on average cumulative volume of ingredients in washes, lotions and shampoos, using ISO/DIS 16128 (water included).}

We deliberately chose to keep fragrance in our products, as our research tells us that multi-sensory experiences, including scents, play a role in happy, healthy baby development. Less than 25% of the aroma compounds used in fragranced consumer products meet our strict purity standards.

At birth, newborns can’t see very well and rely on their sense of smell to familiarize themselves with the world. Keeping fragrances in our products was a purposeful choice, to help support a baby’s multi-sensory development.

• Babies bathed with a scented bath product showed 30% more engagement cues with their parents following a bath than babies bathed with unscented products.

• Babies bathed with a scented bath product spent 25% less time crying after their bath before sleep versus babies bathed with unscented products.

• The fragrance ingredients in JOHNSON’S^® baby products continue to follow International Fragrance Association (IFRA) global standards, as well as our 5-step safety assurance process, but are now additionally screened by independent external organizations including Underwriters Laboratories (UL) and The Environmental Working Group (EWG).

It’s important to us that parents feel confident in what they choose to put on their babies’ skin -- that can only be possible with complete transparency, so we’re sharing 100% of the ingredients in our bottle, including fragrance.

• Johnson's^® Baby products are 100% gentle*

• Johnson's^® Baby products have been free from parabens, phthalates, 1,4 dioxane and formaldehyde-releasing preservatives since 2015— but now all our products are without dyes and sulfates and use more naturally-derived ingredients.

  • 2009: Globally phthalate-free formulas

  • 2013: Globally free of formaldehyde-releasing preservatives

  • 2015: Globally paraben-free formulas

• Allergens are a big concern for parents and known allergens are always changing. Johnson's^® Baby formulas were already free of known allergens, but we pushed further in choosing to keep potential and an expanding list of allergens out of our formulas*.

• Wherever standards differ around the world, we go with the toughest – and our fragrances surpass even the highest global standards.

Previously, for ingredient disclosures our approach was basically to strictly follow government regulation requirements for their markets. Quite often this did not include a full list of ingredients, or detailed information about fragrances. However, as part of our effort to continuously raise standards, we are raising our own ingredient disclosure requirements with the goal of 100% transparency. This means that now, in many cases, we significantly exceed what is asked for by local regulatory bodies.

_{*List of fragrance allergens as identified by the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety of the European Commission. 2012}

We prioritize using ingredients that are not harmful to aquatic life and ecosystems. We use a patented system to help us formulate products that are non-toxic, biodegradable, and don’t bioaccumulate in the environment.

In addition:

• Johnson's^® Baby is the first Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. brand to include the How2Recycle label on bottles in the US.

• We estimate that more efficient processes will reduce our water waste by about 20%.

• We continue to push ourselves to improve our environmental stewardship, and meet ever-higher goals to be more gentle on the environment.