Our Ethical by Nature Promise
- Cruelty-free, ethically sourced, and transparent
- Harmful ingredients removed from our range
- Every product carefully checked against our ETHICS check
Our Naturopaths carefully check every new product to ensure it delivers on New Zealand’s leading ethical, ingredient and environmental standards. If it’s made the grade, you can be sure it’s a kinder choice for both you and our planet.
Harmful ingredients removed from our range
With decades of experience in the natural products industry, we’ve carefully researched and set clear boundaries on the ingredients we won’t allow in our range, due to health or environmental concerns. Together with our supplier partners, we’re committed to ongoing improvements to formulations and ingredient standards - raising the bar in line with evolving research and innovation.
Harmful parabens & preservatives
These serve a purpose, but safer, effective options are available. Choosing natural and paraben-free options helps you care for your skin, reproductive tissue, and thyroid health.
✗ Imidazolidinyl urea
✗ DMDM Hydantoin
✗ Diazolidinyl urea
✗ Sodium Hydroxymethylglycinate
✗ Iodopropynyl butylcarbamate
✗ Methylchloroisothiazolinone
✗ Methylisothiazolinone
✗ Quaternium–15
✗ Bronopol / 2–bromo–2–nitropropane–1,3–diol / 1,3–propanediol
✗ Benzalkonium chloride
✗ Stearalkonium chloride (petroleum sourced)
✗ Triclocarban
✗ Triclosan
✗ Phenylmercuric salts
✗ Butylparaben
✗ Ethylparaben
✗ Methylparaben
✗ Benzotriazole
Questionable synthetic fragrances
We prefer to offer products made with natural, plant-derived fragrances. Synthetic fragrances are often hidden within ingredient lists, making it hard to know what’s inside. By choosing fragrance-free or naturally scented options, you’re supporting your skin, hormone health, and the environment.
✗ Diethyl phthalate
✗ Dimethyl phthalate
✗ Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA)
✗ Musk xylene
✗ Musk ketone
✗ Tonalide / Acetyl Hexamethyl Tetralin
✗ Galoxolide
Non-biodegradable silicones
We leave out silicones because of their environmental impact - once washed off, they enter waterways and don’t readily break down, leading to a build-up known as bioaccumulation. Derived from petroleum, they’re synthetic and non-renewable, yet still common in hair products for smoothness and in moisturisers as emollients. Natural, renewable alternatives are available - you’ll find those instead.
✗ Cyclopentasiloxane
✗ Cyclohexasiloxane
✗ Cycloheptasiloxane
✗ Cyclotrisiloxane
Retinol & vitamin A derivatives
These vitamin A derivatives are often marketed for anti-ageing benefits, but they can also make skin more sensitive — leading to dryness, redness, irritation, increased sun sensitivity, and potential photoaging. They're not recommended during pregnancy or breastfeeding, and concerns have also been raised about free radical formation under UV exposure. With gentler, plant-based alternatives available (like bakuchiol and antioxidant-rich botanicals), we choose to leave out synthetic vitamin A derivatives for safer, everyday skin care.
✗ Retinol
✗ Retinyl acetate
✗ Retinyl palmitate
Other undesirables
This group includes paraffin, DEET, aluminium salts, certain amines, and synthetic stabilisers. They’re often used as preservatives, repellents, or to adjust pH, but many are petroleum-based, harsh on skin and raise environmental concerns. Instead, you’ll find plant-derived alternatives like aloe vera, mineral salts, and coconut-based stabilisers.
✗ Paraffin
✗ Deet (diethyl toluamide)
✗ Aluminium chloride
✗ Aluminium chlorohydrate
✗ Nano aluminium
✗ 2–aminobutanol
✗ Babassuamidopropyl MEA
✗ Ciclopirox olamine
✗ Cocamide MEA
✗ Ethanolamine dithioglycolate
✗ Ethanolamine glycerophosphate
✗ Hydrogenated tallowamine
✗ Isopropanolamine
✗ Isopropanolamine lanolate
✗ Isopropylamine dodecylbenzenesulfonate
✗ Lauramine
✗ MEA o–phenylphenate
✗ MEA–benzoate
✗ MEA–laureth sulfate
✗ MEA–lauryl sulfate
✗ MEA–salicylate
✗ MEA–sulfite
✗ MEA–thiolactate
✗ MEA–undecylenate
✗ MIPA–dodecylbenzenesulfonate
✗ MIPA–laureth sulfate
✗ MIPA–lauryl sulfate
✗ Oleamine
✗ Palmitamine
Our Marine Sustainability Policy
Caring for our marine life
We care deeply about the conservation of our precious coastal and marine environments here at HealthPost. We work with marine mammal rescue group Project Jonah, and through the HealthPost Nature Trust we’re bringing threatened seabirds back to the mainland and actively protecting penguins and other at-risk coastal species.
As part of our commitment to responsible product sourcing, we ensure every new product we stock meets our ETHICS check: eco-friendly, transparent, holistic, ingredient integrity, caring, and sustainable.
Our Naturopaths and Mindful Values Committee review the product’s values, ingredients, claims, testing, and certifications. If the product meets our values alignment, they are then stocked on our shelves for you to make a mindful choice.
Our marine sustainability policy ensures that every product we sell meets independently verified environmental and ethical standards:
- We only sell marine omega products certified by independent, international marine sustainability groups
- We only work with brands with strict marine sustainability policies
- As a result, all fish oil products we sell meet certain sustainability criteria
- We do not stock krill oil products due to concerns regarding the environmental impact - you can find more information on this here.
Across our range, you’ll only find marine omega products certified by:
We only sell marine omega products certified by:
- Friends of the Sea (FOS)
- Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)
- The Global Standard for Responsible Supply (IFFO RS)
Our Sunscreen SPF Policy
We only stock sunscreens that have undergone rigorous independent testing to verify any claims made about the UVA and UVB protection, as well as the SPF rating, and water resistance.
Our Sunscreen Criteria:
- Independently tested for label claims
- No harmful chemicals and strict ingredient standards:
- No Oxybenzone
- No Benzophenone-3
- No Octinoxate
- No Ethyl-hexyl-p-methoxycinnamic acid
- No Homosalate
- No Octocrylene
- No 3-benzylidene-camphor
- No Benzophenone-1
- No Sulispbenzone
- Aerosol-free
- Cruelty free
What about reef-safe?
Current research into the effects of sunscreen on coral reefs is inconclusive. Therefore, there is no universally accepted standard for what is actually “reef-friendly” or “reef-safe”. We continue to stay up to date with the latest research and will wait for a commercial testing method to confirm what makes a product truly reef safe.
For more information, read our blog: What Is A Truly Natural Sunscreen?
Better choices for hair dyes, nail polishes & removers
When it comes to hair dyes, nail polishes, and removers, finding a truly natural product that meets our strict ingredient standards simply isn’t possible — so we’ve made a thoughtful exception. Choosing naturally derived alternatives helps care for your scalp, skin, and nails, while also supporting hormonal and thyroid health.
We don’t stock products that include the following ingredients:
✗ Resorcinol
✗ 1–Naphthol
✗ Ammonia / Ammonium hydroxide
✗ Toluene
Hair dyes
We choose to stock Tints of Nature and Aromaganic dyes as we believe these are the cleanest and most ethical hair dyes available. Both of these brands are free of some of the nastier ingredients often contained in hair dyes. As well as being a better choice than many permanent hair dyes available because of the ingredients they’ve chosen, both of these brands go above and beyond to use their business to reflect their values of caring for the environment, using organic ingredients, choosing more eco-friendly packaging options, and giving back. For a 100% natural hair colour option, we do offer pure Henna plant powders in a range of colours.
Nail polishes & removers
When it comes to nail polish, finding a completely natural and effective option isn’t possible. Most are packed with toxic chemicals such as toluene and formaldehyde, which are known to have negative effects on human health.
After extensive research, we found the Hanami range to be one of the cleanest brands available. Hanami nail polish is ‘10-free’, meaning they are free from dibutyl phthalate, TPHP, toluene, xylene, ethyl tosylamide, camphor, formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin, parabens, and tert-butyl hydroperoxide. They do however contain N-butyl alcohol, a fragrance ingredient in their polishes, as well as propylene glycol, PEG40, and DMDM hydantoin in their polish removers.
Along with ingredients, values and ethics of a company are an important factor we always take into consideration. Hanami are cruelty free, vegan, and PETA certified, as well as non-toxic and water permeable. While Hanami is not 100% natural, we believe they offer a better choice not only for our health, but our planet’s too.
Our Sugar Policy
To help our customers make healthy choices, our Sugar Policy is a guarantee that our entire range of supplements and protein powders are free from surprise sugars. That doesn’t mean no sugar, simply that we have strict limits in place for the amount of sugars in supplements and protein powders, where you’d least expect them.
Our Sugar Policy also means that we advocate for transparency for customers from our brand partners for any sugar content in supplements to be disclosed on site. Supplements, unlike foods, aren’t required to list their sugar content so it can be more difficult to understand the sugar content.
Our sugar limits apply to:
- Supplements: 4g per daily serve
- Protein powders: 7.0gm total sugar per 100gm unless sweetened / flavoured with natural fruit powders.
We don’t set sugar limits on food products, but we encourage customers to review the Nutritional Information Panel (NIP) so that they can see how much sugar is contained in the product they are buying. The easiest way to do this is look for the amount in the per 100gm column so that it’s easier to think of it as a % of sugar in the product.
What about artificial sweeteners?
Our Restricted Ingredients we don’t accept includes ‘first generation’ artificial sweeteners. That means we don’t stock products containing: Aspartame (951), Cyclamate (952), Saccharin (954).
From our extensive research, there wasn’t sufficient evidence to restrict ‘second generation’ artificial sweeteners. We accept products that may contain these artificial sweeteners, including: Acesulfame K (950), Sucralose (955), Neotame (961). We always encourage our suppliers to use natural sweeteners as often as possible.
If you want to avoid artificial sweeteners altogether, you can shop our Artificial Sweetener Free range.
All products carefully checked by our Naturopaths
Lypo-Spheric Vitamin C
$67.20
LivOn Laboratories
Lypo-Spheric Vitamin C
30pkts - 5.7ml each
$67.20
