Is Arbonne Gluten-Free?

Over the years, I have been approached by multiple Arbonne saleswomen who want to sell me their products. I've always been skeptical because they were always rather pushy and I tend to not buy from those types of companies. While the saleswomen insisted Arbonne is gluten-free, I could never really get a straight answer. On the Arbonne website, they say:

As part of our ongoing commitment to ingredient excellence, we have been successful in replacing parabens by using other safe and effective preservation systems. We have also put into place an ingredient policy to screen out gluten and ingredients that contain GMO. We will continue to bring to market top-quality products that are carefully reviewed to meet our high standards of purity.

This made me skeptical. Screen out gluten??? Why not produce products with no gluten at all? There is also a list of products formulated without gluten but again they do not call their products "gluten-free". I was getting confused so just like with the BabycakesNYC debacle, I decided to go to the source. 

The response from Arbonne took a while (multiple tweets, emails, and customer service inquiries via their website) but I finally got one. It is lengthy but at least they are transparent and seem to understand PPM which is more than most companies.

Thank you for your email. We appreciate your inquiry regarding Arbonne products and ingredients. I will be more than happy to assist you.

All Arbonne products are formulated without gluten. While there are ingredients in the products that have names that would indicate they contain high amounts of gluten this is not the case. We do understand the confusion as individuals with gluten intolerance, celiac disease, etc. are told to avoid ingredients such as wheat, barley, oats, etc.; however, the ingredients used in our products can go through many different types of processing before they are ready to be used in topical products. The final ingredient, despite the fact of coming from common sources of gluten, does not have a detectable level of gluten.

We have submitted products with ingredients that come from well-known gluten sources for testing, and have confirmed that gluten is not detectable in the products. 

The ingredients from natural gluten sources go through an extraction process to remove the gluten; therefore gluten is undetected at below 0-2 ppm which allows us to label it gluten-free. Our products are tested to ensure that gluten is undetected and our facilities are sterilized before any batch productions are implemented. 

Arbonne is a global company and we develop and manufacture based on a global perspective. When it comes to gluten statements (and others, such as Kosher), there is not a global benchmark across all four countries Arbonne does business in. Arbonne products are formulated without gluten and in the U.S., for example, that means formulated with “less than 20 parts per million.” When determining the ppm for gluten testing, one method we commonly use at Arbonne is the ELISA Test. It is an antibody-antigen test. 

Some Essentials products are made in a facility that processes milk, eggs, tree nuts, soy, and wheat and have that warning label on the packaging. While these Essentials products are required by our manufacturers to have a warning that indicates that the products are manufactured in a facility that also manufactures product containing these ingredients, we would not say that the facilities are, “contaminated”. All of our manufacturers have stringent SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) for the cleansing and sanitation of the machinery between productions. Additionally, all of our manufacturers are audited by Arbonne as well as other regulatory agencies like the FDA for compliance. To this day, we are not aware of any issues that have occurred with our customers regarding cross contamination. 

Our labels, like so many products today, include allergy-related statements for the benefit of those with those specific concerns. We are unable to advise whether a product or an ingredient is safe to use with any medical condition. We suggest that anyone with a medical condition (including allergies, pregnancy, or nursing), that is undergoing medical treatment, or using or will be using a prescription medication consult their physician prior to using any Arbonne products in conjunction with them. This would also include anyone with sensitivities to certain ingredients.
I hope that this information was most helpful to you. Thank you for your interest in Arbonne. We appreciate you! 

If you need additional assistance, please feel free to contact us by email or phone. We are here to assist you as follows (central time zone): U.S. 1-800-ARBONNE (1-800-272-6663) 8:00 am to 8:00 pm Monday through Friday and 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Saturday. Canada 1-888-ARBONNE (1-888-272-6663) 8:00 am to 8:00 pm Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Saturday (English) and 9am to 5pm Monday through Friday (French). 

We appreciate you! Regards,
Leilany A.
Arbonne Customer Service

So what do you think? Would you use Arbonne after reading this email? I would love to hear your comments below, but PLEASE no Arbonne sales pitches. They will be deleted!

2/10/2014 Update: Due to ambiguous nature of the response from Arbonne and the conflicting statements in the email above, I personally choose not to use Arbonne. This is my personal decision and I would appreciate if all of the Arbonne consultant hate mail would stop immediately! You are definitely not helping to change my decision with your nasty emails.