I stopped at Wegmans tonight on my way home from the day’s activities, just to grab something quickly. On my way toward the back of the store, I walked through the personal care/cosmetics aisle and, as I often do, took a quick glance at some of the ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ claims on the products.
One in particular jumped out at me this time. It was called ‘Organic Wear.’ When I turned it over it said that the ingredients were 100% natural and 16% organic. That’s right, just 16%. And they call it ‘Organic Wear’?
With food products, there is a required minimum of 70% organic ingredients in order to use even the phrase ‘made with organic ingredients’ on the product. To claim the product is ‘organic’ actually requires at least 95% organic ingredients. And this is what most people expect when they see ‘organic’ on any label. Not so with personal care and cosmetic products – they can and do get away with misleading labels all the time.
And the fact that the remaining 84% is ‘natural’ means very little when you consider the chemical processes that personal care and cosmetic companies can put their ‘natural’ ingredients through during formulation and still call them ‘natural.’ (see Part 2 of the 5-part report below).
The particular product I saw tonight was certified by Eco-Cert, which I have recently learned is the lowest and most permissive of the organic certification standards out there. (see article below and Part 2 of my report for a general discussion on sub-par organic standards and ‘natural’ marketing terminology in general).
Free 5-part report on evaluating ‘natural’ personal care products.
Various ‘organic’ standards for personal care products.
Darn it! I have been using Physician’s Formula Organic Makeup which has the “Eco-Cert” designation. Grumble, grumble…
Yeah Caren, sadly it’s not so simple to spot the fakes until armed with the knowledge to do so. And of course, everyone has their own level of ‘comfort’ along the synthetic-natural continuum. For me, I prefer to apply the precautionary principle and just go as natural as possible: certified organic to food grade standards. Now that I know that people have figured out how to achieve great results and shelf life from personal care products without preservatives and other functional synthetics (i.e., for results enhancement etc), I no longer see any reason to concede to traditionally accepted synthetic ingredients in personal care products.