Frequently Asked Questions

ARE NANCY BOY PRODUCTS NATURAL?

More than 85% of Nancy Boy products are made with all-natural ingredients, including their preservatives:

• Lip Balms in all flavors
  
• Signature Pre-Shave Oil
• Unscented Pre-Shave Oil For Sensitive Skin
• Blossomwood Pre-Shave Oil
• Active Deodorant
• Tea Tree Deodorant
• Fresh Deodorant
• Stealth Deodorant
• Butch Parfum
• Signature Body Spray
• Butch Body Spray
• Fem Body Spray
• Salt Scrubs in all scents
• Bath Salts in all scents
• Bubble Baths in all scents
• Balancing Facial Toner with Organic Neroli
• Clarifying Facial Toner
• Organic Black Teas, all varieties
• Organic Loose Teas, all varieties
• Hand Soaps in all scents
• Scented Body Oils in all scents
• Essential Oils in all scents
• Room Sprays in all scents
• Soy Wax candles in all scents
• Scented Lavender Buds
• Hearth Botanicals
• Beeswax candles in all varieties
• Eco-Dish Soaps in all scents
• Eco-Laundry Soaps in all scents
• Scented Linen Sprays in all scents
• Deodorizing Spray Cleaner

All of our products are paraben-free, phthalate-free, with no artificial colors or fragrances. 15% of our product line includes ingredients that aren't considered "natural" even if they are derived from natural ingredients, like the ammonium laureth sulfate in our shampoo, which comes from coconuts.  Some ingredients, like the polymers in our styling gel, simply aren't found in nature. We use our products every day. So do our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, nephews, nieces and best friends. Not to mention you, our customers, who we have a vested interest in keeping healthy, wealthy and wise.

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ARTIFICIAL & PLANT-BASED FRAGRANCE?

Artificial fragrance is like artificial flavor - chemicals arranged to mimic something natural. But chemicals don't smell like real lavender, just like a cherry Life Saver doesn't taste like a cherry. Real fragrance comes from real plants, through the steam extraction of flowers, fruit rind or rare woods into their essential oils.

It matters. The FDA allows manufacturers to use the tame, catch-all term "Fragrance" on an ingredient listing if the product contains artificial scent, and artificial scent contains pthalates. We don't see these bad-for-us ingredients listed on the label because the FDA is under extreme pressure from the few industry titans that control 90% of the personal care business:

Estee Lauder owns 30 brands, including Aveda, Bumble & Bumble, Jo Malone, Origins, M-A-C, La Mer, Bobbi Brown, Prescriptives, etc.

L'Oreal owns Kiehl's, The Body Shop, Maybelline, Biotherm, Helena Rubenstein, Garnier, Lancome, etc.

Proctor & Gamble owns Olay, Max Factor, Cover Girl, Herbal Essence, Pantene, Gillette, Noxzema, etc.

Unilever owns Axe, Dove, Vaseline, Lifebuoy, Pond's, etc.

99% of these brands make a big fat deal out of NOT using certain ingredients like parabens but then turn around and use artificial fragrance, which is like that scene in "Postcards From The Edge" when Shirley Maclaine is mixing up the smoothie with every healthy ingredient known to humanity then at the last minute dumps in 4 shots of vodka. Artificial fragrance is toxic and nasty, but because it's cheap and unregulated, will be the last ingredient to disappear from personal care products.

WHY DO YOUR PRODUCTS VARY IN COLOR FROM ORDER TO ORDER?

We use essential oils to scent our products. These plant oils are naturally colored, depending on the variety. Lavender is clear, while Pink Grapefruit can range from light pink to shocking orange, depending on the growing conditions for that year's crop. We don't "color correct" for these variations, so our finished products will also range in hue depending on the batch of essential oil we're using at any given time.

ARE NANCY BOY PRODUCTS FOR MEN?

Our products work exceedingly well for people with hair or skin. Women now account for approximately 55% of our sales, which might be surprising except for the fact that, overall, women consume more of these products than men.

Again, to sell more products, the beauty biz marketing folks keep trying to convince men and women they need different stuff. However, men's products are simply repackaged forms of big-volume women's products. For example, if you compare Clinique's Dramatically Different moisturizer (for women) and M Lotion (for men) you'll see they have exactly the same ingredients! Not to mention that the main moisturizing ingredient they use is mineral oil, which is ultra-cheap and comes from rocks, not plants.

SHOULD I BE CONCERNED ABOUT SULFATES IN YOUR SHAMPOO?

One day a manufacturer needed a marketing hook for his new shampoo and decided that "sulfate-free" would be his. The only thing he needed was good old-fashioned FUD (fear, uncertainty & doubt) and another internet scare store story was born.

The rap against sulfate-based surfactants is that they are 1) cheap and 2) irritating (harsh).  Anything beyond that in terms of a sulfate health scare is just the usual internet-as-National-Enquirer BS.

So to address the two objections:

1) Cheap

All cleansing agents (with or without sulfates) are inexpensive relative to the conditioning ingredients and essential oils in our shampoo. Switching to a sulfate-free formula would increase our formulation cost by less than 2%.

We haven't replaced this ingredient because we've tested a zillion different sulfate-free formulations over the past ten years and users overwhelmingly prefer not to use them.  While the sulfate-free idea is appealing, the actual experience is not. The main complaints are that it leaves hair feeling dirty/with a film, that users have to shampoo more often and they feel their hair doesn't look or feel as good. In blind tests, over 90% of users pick our current formulation versus a sulfate-free version with the same essential oil fragrance. (Try a sulfate-free product and see what you think.)

2) Irritating (harsh)

The key to formulating a superior shampoo is pairing the surfactant, whether it's sulfate-based or not, with rich conditioning ingredients, so the product cleanses hair thoroughly without stripping (or causing irritation). If you have a sensitivity to sulfates, you find out when you're a child--it's an allergic reaction, and a very small percentage of the population is affected.  

WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT THE WATER YOU USE?

One ingredient we pay a lot of attention to might surprise you.

Boring, unsexy, who-gives-a-hoot-about water.

Public water supplies in 42 US states are contaminated with 141 unregulated chemicals for which the US EPA has never established safety standards.

If a manufacturer isn't using distilled, purified or de-ionized water to make their products, then all the unseen, unregulated junk in the water--pharmaceuticals, pesticides, you name it-- make their way directly into the lotions and potions. Yes it costs more to use distilled water--we pay 75 cents a gallon and use a ton of it. Just by spending a little bit more it's possible to make sure this primary ingredient is as free of contamination as possible.

WHERE ARE NANCY BOY PRODUCTS SOLD?

You can find Nancy Boy products in only two places in the world! The first, where 95% of our business is done, is this website. If you're our neighbor here in the San Francisco Bay Area or are visiting, please stop by our retail store located in San Francisco.

WHERE ARE NANCY BOY PRODUCTS MADE?

Nancy Boy products are made in Berkeley, California, except for our soap, which is made in Rhode Island. 

DOES NANCY BOY TEST ITS PRODUCTS ON ANIMALS?

No. Our tagline,"Tested on Boyfriends - Not Animals" is printed on our packaging.

HOW LONG WILL MY ORDER TAKE TO GET TO ME?

Please refer to our Shipping Info page for detailed transit times.

DO YOU SHIP TO PO BOXES AND INTERNATIONALLY?

We're happy to ship to PO Box and APO* addresses, Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands at US Domestic rates using the United States Postal Service. We do not ship internationally. APO shipping instructions are here.