Here is the response I got from Arbonne when asked about possible petroleum in their products. This is what their rep said:
"It is not unusual for people to read about these ingredients and then look at ours and get all nervous. However, you have to be comfortable with the company in question. Arbonne has built its' reputation on our products. We are not going to market something as Pure, Safe and Beneficial if it isn't. Arbonne is not 100% natural. Nothing can be without mixing it up in your kitchen each day or running the risk of bacterias and fungus forming.
When an ingredient is listed on a product, that ingredient has to serve a purpose. The ingredients that were in question were listed by their "technical lab name" as they serve the purpose of that ingredient; however, take for instance Urea, ours is listed as Urea because the function is as a preservative, but we formulate our Urea in the lab so on the product knowledge sheets you will see the source as "science". Same is true with the others she listed. We just leave out the chemical toxins but it serves the same purpose.
As far as mineral oil, petrolatum and petroleum goes, it basically is the same. WE DO NOT USE ANY PETROLEUM, PETROLATUM OR MINERAL OIL OF ANY KIND IN ARBONNE PRODUCTS. Some of these ingredients are addressed on Arbonne.com under product knowledge under frequently asked questions. The methlparabens and propylparabens are not petroleum derived. Neither are the others that were mentioned. I am not sure why Arbonne hasn't gotten back with you unless your email didn't go thru or they just haven't had time. We are the fastest growing network marketing company (or any other company for that matter) right now and we didn't get there by blowing smoke. We are the best on the market. We have the BEST research and development lab in Switzerland headed up by one of the World's best known cosmetic chemist. And remember, the reason Petter started Arbonne was because he was concerned about what he saw as a chemist going in to mainstream cosmetics. He didn't start this company twenty five years ago to make money. In fact, he was then and still remains one of the richest men in Norway. His family actually put a lot of their own money into this business. Arbonne did not make him one of the richest men, he already was. Since Arbonne does only word of mouth advertising, it is proof positive that it must be good or we wouldn't be bringing 30 to 50 thousand new clients, consultants or wholesale buyers in a month. There are far too many professional individuals that have joined Arbonne that are way smarter than me who have done their due diligence in checking everything out.
We are not in the convincing business……………the integrity of the company, the pureness of the products, together with a twenty five year track record speaks volumes."
Anyway, after that I looked into a couple more of the ingredients. It's very difficult to research skincare ingredients, because I think the huge skin care industry has a vested interest in making sure we don't find out too much about the ingredients they use.
It does look like PEG-4 can be made from rapeseed instead of petroleum. Also, Propylene Glycol Dicaprylate/Dicaprate can be made from coconut oil instead of petroleum. Those were two ingredients that I had previously found to be petroleum-based, because that's how they are listed in most data bases. So basically I would only be concerned about the Urea, parabens, and TEA-Carbomer. Dimethicone is also an ingredient I don't like, but it used widely in the medical field.
The only other thing to consider is that in most of the Arbonne products, water is the first ingredient. You're paying for a product that is mostly water....
I do think Arbonne is one of the better products out there, and probably as good as you will get for commercial products. There is no "perfect" commercial product because they all have to use a preservative or they couldn't mass market them. I choose to make my own, so I don't have to deal with unknown factors. I make small batches and refridgerate my ingredients.
Hope this helps clear things up.