ROOTS Verified™
For a product. A single item evaluated against the Standards: its ingredients or materials, its testing, its manufacturing, and its supply chain.
Published criteria · Version 12
The ROOTS Luxury Wellness Standards™
Published criteria for products and properties. Version 12, effective September 2026.
Wellness claims in luxury hospitality are largely unverified. A brand says clean. A property says restorative. Neither statement is checked against anything. The ROOTS Luxury Wellness Standards is a written framework for evaluating what a guest breathes, drinks, sleeps on, touches, and consumes. It was built for hospitality, where the person exposed did not choose the product and cannot read the label. Criteria are published. Scoring is applied the same way to every submission. Determinations are recorded in writing and retained.
Two Marks
ROOTS Certified™
For a property. A building evaluated across air, light, water, materials, and rest, with every guest-facing input held to the Standards: amenities, textiles, cleaning and laundry chemistry, food and beverage service materials, ingestibles, spa products and equipment, and functional health program elements.
An Interlude
A property cannot be Certified unless what is inside it is Verified.
How Scoring Works
One hundred points, applied consistently.
Every subject is scored across ten categories, ten points each, for a total of one hundred. Category-specific subscoring is applied according to product class.
Category
What it examines
Guest Safety
Risk to a person who did not select the product and may not know what is in it
Toxicology
Known and suspected harm from constituents, contaminants, and degradation products
Functional Medicine Alignment
Effect on the body systems the property is claiming to support
Nervous-System Compatibility
Sensory, chemical, and environmental load on regulation and recovery
Evidence Base
Quality and independence of the evidence behind the claims
Ingredient and Material Integrity
What it is actually made of, verified against disclosure
Ethics and Sourcing
Origin, labor, environmental practice, and supply chain traceability
Hospitality Operations
Whether it survives real service: durability, laundering, storage, staff handling
Luxury Experience Alignment
Whether it holds at the tier the property operates in
Transparency and Brand Integrity
Willingness to disclose, and consistency between claims and documents
Classifications
Score
Classification
Meaning
95–100
Elite
Exceeds the Standards across every category
88–94
Approved
Meets the Standards
75–87
Approved with Conditions
Meets the Standards for defined use cases only
60–74
Needs More Research
Disclosure or evidence insufficient to determine
Below 60
Does Not Meet Standards
Not specified for ROOTS properties
Hard Triggers
Thirteen findings override the score.
Any one of them means the subject does not meet the Standards, regardless of how well it performs elsewhere.
- 01Synthetic or undisclosed fragrance
- 02BHT
- 03PEG or 1,4-dioxane contamination risk without vacuum-stripping documentation
- 04Sodium lauryl sulfate
- 05Microplastics
- 06High allergen burden where guest histories are unknown
- 07Phototoxic botanicals, particularly at sun-intensive properties
- 08Pregnancy contraindications
- 09Recall or contamination history under the brand or its parent
- 10Hidden manufacturer or obscured contract-manufacturing relationship
- 11Brand authority resting on influencer positioning rather than substantiation
- 12Endocrine-disruption flags
- 13Inability to confirm safe-for-pregnancy formulation
These criteria describe what ROOTS Collective will and will not specify for hospitality environments, where a guest did not select the product, cannot read the label, and has an unknown medical history. They are specification preferences, not assertions that any named substance is unsafe at every exposure level or in every context. A subject that does not meet the ROOTS Standards may be entirely lawful, widely used, and appropriate elsewhere.
How a Determination Is Made
- 01
Disclosure. The submitter completes the ROOTS Vendor Disclosure Request. Incomplete or refused disclosure is itself a finding.
- 02
Verification. Claimed certifications are checked in the issuing registry. Certificates of analysis, batch traceability, and supporting documentation are reviewed against the claims made.
- 03
Classification. The subject is routed to its product class and scored against the universal criteria plus every applicable class set.
- 04
Determination. Score and classification are recorded. Hard triggers override score.
- 05
Report. The submitter receives a written report with the determination, the reasoning, and, where the subject falls short, a Path to Approval stating what would need to change.
- 06
Re-verification. Marks are valid for twelve months. Reformulation, supplier change, or recall requires immediate re-submission.
What the Marks Do Not Mean
- ·A mark is not a health claim. It does not state that a product treats, prevents, or improves any condition.
- ·A mark is not a safety guarantee. It states that a subject met defined criteria on a defined date, based on the documentation available.
- ·A mark is not a medical or regulatory approval and does not substitute for one.
- ·A determination applies to the specific formulation, material, or property assessed. It does not extend to a brand's other products.
Confidentiality of Determinations
Only awarded marks are published. ROOTS maintains a register of subjects holding a current ROOTS Verified or ROOTS Certified mark. Determinations below the award threshold are confidential between ROOTS and the submitter. ROOTS does not publish, disclose, or confirm that any subject was reviewed and did not meet the Standards. Absence from the register is not a statement about any product or property. A subject may be absent because it was never submitted.
Appeals, Expiry, and Revocation
- Appeal. A submitter may request reconsideration within thirty days by providing documentation not available at the time of review.
- Path to Approval. Any subject falling short receives a written statement of what would need to change. Re-submission is available at any time.
- Expiry. Marks are valid for twelve months from the determination date and lapse automatically if not re-verified.
- Revocation. ROOTS may revoke a mark where a subject is reformulated, changes supplier, is subject to a recall or regulatory action, or where information supplied during review is found to be inaccurate.
Criteria and Disclosure
Criteria first, in every determination.
ROOTS Collective is a specifying consultancy. ROOTS holds affiliate or partner relationships with some of the brands it evaluates and recommends. Every such relationship is disclosed on the listing and in any proposal where the product appears.
No brand can purchase a determination. Classification is based on the published criteria alone. A brand that meets the criteria and holds no commercial relationship with ROOTS is treated identically to one that does. A brand that does not meet the criteria does not receive a mark at any price.
Submitting for review and licensing a mark are separate transactions. Review fees pay for the review. They do not pay for the outcome. A subject that meets the Standards may be specified for a ROOTS property without licensing the mark.
The ROOTS Luxury Wellness Standards and the ROOTS Verified and ROOTS Certified marks are the property of ROOTS Collective Co. This page states the criteria applied. Scoring rubrics, class trigger sets, evidence hierarchy, and report methodology are proprietary and not published.