Amika markets itself as a clean beauty brand, and most of its formulations do avoid many commonly flagged ingredients. But the full picture is more nuanced. The brand has earned legitimate third-party certifications for clean formulation and environmental responsibility, while also facing a legal challenge over benzene contamination in one of its most popular products.
What Amika Leaves Out of Its Formulas
Amika is certified Clean at Sephora, which means every product the brand sells through that retailer is formulated without parabens, sulfates (including SLS and SLES), phthalates, mineral oils, and formaldehyde. These are among the ingredients that raise the most concern for consumers shopping for safer personal care products. The brand’s signature ingredient, sea buckthorn berry oil, scores a 1 out of 10 (lowest hazard) on the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep database, where it functions as a skin-conditioning agent.
A look at the ingredient list for products like the Perk Up Dry Shampoo (2020 formulation) confirms the absence of talc and aluminum starch, two ingredients that have drawn scrutiny in aerosol and powder products. The dry shampoo instead uses rice starch as its oil-absorbing base.
The Benzene Issue With Perk Up Dry Shampoo
In 2023, a California Proposition 65 notice was filed against Amika, its parent company Bansk Group, and Sephora over the Perk Up Dry Shampoo. The notice alleged that the product exposed consumers to benzene, a known carcinogen, through inhalation without providing the warning labels required under California law. The filing demanded that Amika either recall the product, add Proposition 65 warnings, or reformulate to eliminate the exposure.
Benzene contamination has been a widespread problem across the aerosol beauty industry, not unique to Amika. The chemical is not an intentional ingredient but can appear as a contaminant in propellant gases like butane and propane, both of which are listed in the Perk Up formula. This is worth knowing if you use aerosol dry shampoos regularly, since benzene exposure is cumulative and the inhalation route means the chemical bypasses your body’s usual filtering systems.
Third-Party Certifications
Beyond the Sephora Clean certification, Amika holds two other notable credentials. The brand is certified cruelty-free by PETA, confirming that neither its ingredients nor finished products are tested on animals, and that its suppliers and third-party manufacturers follow the same standard.
Amika also became a certified B Corporation in March 2023, with an overall B Impact Score of 99.2. That score reflects assessments across governance, worker treatment, community impact, and environmental practices. The environment category was the brand’s strongest area at 32.2 points. B Corp certification requires a company to meet verified standards of social and environmental performance, so it speaks to corporate practices beyond just what’s in the bottle.
What “Non-Toxic” Actually Means Here
There is no regulated definition of “non-toxic” in the beauty industry. A product can be free of parabens, sulfates, and formaldehyde while still containing synthetic fragrances, silicones (like the cyclopentasiloxane in the dry shampoo), or propellant gases that may carry trace contaminants. Amika’s formulations are cleaner than many mainstream competitors by measurable standards, but “non-toxic” is a marketing term, not a safety guarantee.
If your concern is avoiding the most commonly flagged harmful ingredients, Amika’s formulations largely deliver on that promise. If your concern is zero chemical risk of any kind, no commercial hair care brand can make that claim honestly. The benzene issue with the dry shampoo is a real example of how a product can check every “clean” box on its ingredient label and still carry an exposure risk from manufacturing contaminants that don’t appear on the packaging.
For everyday use, Amika’s rinse-out products like shampoos, conditioners, and masks carry a lower risk profile than their aerosol products simply because you’re not inhaling them. If you’re choosing between Amika and conventional drugstore brands, the ingredient lists generally reflect a meaningful difference in formulation philosophy, backed by certifications that require independent verification rather than just self-reporting.