Sciece Series: The E W G Partnership—How Safety Ratings Shaped Our Formulas

In the mid-2000s, a colleague at Pfizer recommended a newly launched resource: the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep database. At the time, E W G was pioneering something revolutionary—public transparency in cosmetic ingredient safety.Remember, the F D A doesn't require pre-market safety testing for personal care products. Companies can formulate with almost anything and make almost any claim. E W G stepped into that regulatory gap.Keys immediately submitted our formulations to Skin Deep and was ranked among the safest products in every category—a distinction we've maintained for nearly two decades.In 2007, Consumer Reports independently tested Keys Solar Rx and ranked it the number one most effective cosmetic sunscreen for both U V A and U V B protection. They also highlighted Keys as "the only company telling the truth" about nanoparticle safety.This wasn't luck. We formulated with intention—using only ingredients that passed both E W G's safety thresholds and our own internal research standards.But here's what made it different: we didn't just use E W G as a marketing badge. We integrated its rating system into our formulation process as an additional safety checkpoint. If an ingredient couldn't earn an E W G rating of "1" or "0"—the safest categories—it wasn't considered.For over a decade, Solar Rx was ranked as one of the top-rated moisturizer sunscreens in EWG's annual Sunscreen Report. We became active participants in the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, pushing for ingredient transparency across the industry.This early relationship with E W G helped shape our public commitment: Chemical-Free Skin Health—a philosophy that long predated the "clean beauty" movement.Today, when you choose Keys, you're choosing formulas that have been independently verified for safety.In the mid-2000s, a colleague at Pfizer recommended a newly launched resource: the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep database. At the time, E W G was pioneering something revolutionary—public transparency in cosmetic ingredient safety.Remember, the F D A doesn't require pre-market safety testing for personal care products. Companies can formulate with almost anything and make almost any claim. E W G stepped into that regulatory gap.Keys immediately submitted our formulations to Skin Deep and was ranked among the safest products in every category—a distinction we've maintained for nearly two decades.In 2007, Consumer Reports independently tested Keys Solar Rx and ranked it the number one most effective cosmetic sunscreen for both U V A and U V B protection. They also highlighted Keys as "the only company telling the truth" about nanoparticle safety.This wasn't luck. We formulated with intention—using only ingredients that passed both E W G's safety thresholds and our own internal research standards.But here's what made it different: we didn't just use E W G as a marketing badge. We integrated its rating system into our formulation process as an additional safety checkpoint. If an ingredient couldn't earn an E W G rating of "1" or "0"—the safest categories—it wasn't considered.For over a decade, Solar Rx was ranked as one of the top-rated moisturizer sunscreens in EWG's annual Sunscreen Report. We became active participants in the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, pushing for ingredient transparency across the industry.This early relationship with E W G helped shape our public commitment: Chemical-Free Skin Health—a philosophy that long predated the "clean beauty" movement.Today, when you choose Keys, you're choosing formulas that have been independently verified for safety.