Live Clean Baby Tearless Shampoo and Wash: Perfume Free and Gentle Moisture formulas

There are so many baby shampoos to choose from—how do you decide? If you're looking for a shampoo you can feel good about using, Live Clean Baby Tearless Shampoo and Wash Perfume Free is a great option. Made with 98 percent plant-based ingredients, this vegan shampoo and wash is free of parabens (potential endocrine disruptors) and sodium lauryl sulfate, a.k.a. SLS (a potential skin irritant), plus it's enriched with vitamin E, an antioxidant that's good for the skin. Or, if you prefer a scented baby shampoo, you could opt for Live Clean Baby Tearless Shampoo and Wash Gentle Moisture, which is infused with aloe, lavender and chamomile for a light scent. Both of these Live Clean Baby shampoo and wash products received high praise from our editors and parent testers, earning them a spot among our Today's Parent Approved products.

To put baby shampoos to the test in our lab, we started with measuring each product's pH. If it’s been a while since you last heard that term, pH is a scale that indicates how acidic or alkaline (basic) a liquid is. Products with a pH that's too low (acidic) or too high (alkaline) can affect the skin barrier—a concern for babies because their skin barrier is still developing, and a damaged skin barrier can increase the risk of skin conditions like atopic eczema. Research suggests that the optimal pH for baby wash products is around 5.5 (up to 7), and both the Live Clean Baby Tearless Shampoo and Wash Perfume Free and Live Clean Baby Tearless Shampoo and Wash Gentle Moisture had a pH of 5.8 in our tests.

Next, we put this shampoo through rigorous testing to determine everything from its latherability, texture and rinsing, plus we had our parent testers try this shampoo with their little ones to get real-life feedback. In our lab tests, we found that although the gel formula is on the thin side as far as baby shampoos go, it still has a bubbly lather that cleans well. The majority of our parent testers agreed, telling us that the Live Clean Baby shampoo and wash cleaned oils, dirt and food from their child’s hair (and skin) well. They felt this shampoo lathered and rinsed well—one parent even said she was surprised at how well it lathered for a shampoo with plant-derived ingredients. (Bonus: It left our hands feeling soft, not dry, after testing this in the lab.) It's worth noting that while we found the gel-like shampoo pretty easy to work with in the lab, one of our parent testers said she had to keep her hand level after squeezing shampoo into it in order to prevent the shampoo from sliding off.

Our parent testers told us that ingredients matter for the products they're using on their kids, and all but one said they felt good about using these shampoos on their kids. Live Clean Baby Tearless Shampoo and Wash Perfume Free is especially ideal if you're looking for a product without added fragrance, a blanket term that can represent a number of ingredients.

A product that’s easy to use is one that’s easy to go back to, and our editors and parent testers found the Live Clean Baby shampoos really easy to open, close and pour with one hand—wet or dry. It's worth noting that a little build-up can form on the cap because of the gel-like texture of this shampoo, but it doesn't hamper dispensing the shampoo. The shampoo bottle is nice and compact, sitting well on the edge of the tub, but some of our testers said they wished it came in a bigger bottle. 

FINAL WORD  

Live Clean Tearless Shampoo and Wash Perfume Free and it's scented sister, Live Clean Baby Tearless Shampoo and Wash Gentle Moisture, were a hit with our editors and families who tried them out at home. The majority of our parent testers rated the shampoo’s quality and ease of use as good to very good, and while their views on its value ranged, most rated it above average. With its plant-based formula, skin barrier-friendly pH and effectiveness in getting your little one's hair and body clean—and the stamp of approval from of our parent testers—it was a no-brainer to award these products our Today's Parent Approved seal.