Reading Labels on Personal Care Products (part 4)

How do I know if an ‘Organic’ & ‘Natural’ claim is for real & the product avoids chemicals?

The Personal Care and Cosmetics Industry are dependent on the use of synthetic ingredients. The industry does not have a lot in place to ensure that synthetic ingredients used in their products are actually tested to be safe for consumers. The cost to do so would be prohibitive and it would take precious time to actually do adequate tests (before putting a product to market). The Cosmetic Ingredient Review, which itself is made up of manufacturers of personal care and cosmetics, have, in my opinion, not much to do with synthetic ingredient safety. In the USA as well as in other countries, government efforts to safeguard consumer’s health when it comes to using synthetic ingredients, are seen as quite limited by concerned groups such as safecosmetics.org.

Now that ‘organic’ is in for consumers. Many manufacturers are coming up with their own so called ‘organic’ standard as new marketing strategies. So-called ‘organic’ because their standards will allow synthetic chemicals. Organic certification standards from USDA NOP or organic certifications related to IFOAM do a way better job at preventing synthetic chemicals from being used. Read more about it at http://toxicbeauty.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/on-new-natural-organic-cosmetic-standards-how-does-these-standards-stand-up-to-established-organic-food-standards/

One must go outside of the Personal Care and Cosmetic industry to actually find adequate regulation & safety – Organic Certification is the only true standard I know of that ensures synthetic chemicals are not used in the making a product. It’s great and marvelous that we have these organic certifiers around. Some standards are better than others (see IFOAM) but they indeed are great to have around. Organic certification started in the 50’s and 60’s as a reaction to the chemical onslaught in agriculture.

It’s not enough to say ‘Organic’ or ‘Natural’, you should look for the logo to prove an organic claim. It has to be on the bottle. (eg. miessence Certified Organic from ONEGroup http://myorganicfamily.mionegroup.com is certified by USDA NOP and Australia Certified Organic)