WHEN IT COMES TO BODY CARE PRODUCTS,

What does the word organic mean? These days, not a whole lot. While the National Organic Program of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was originally intended to govern only food, as of August 2005 the USDA had agreed to allow other product categories—such as personal care products, cotton, and cleaning items—to receive certification. However, the department does not enforce adher­ence to the organic standards in the personal care products industry.

        Unfortunately, when seeking to purchase “organic” personal care products, the buyer needs to be wary. A vast array of body care products labeled “organic” (more than 5 million entries in a Google search) differ little from run-of-the-mill drugstore commodities. In addition, a maker of personal-care merchandise may receive USDA certification for a few items, or even just one, and then promote their company as “certified organic,” thereby lead­ing consumers to believe that all of their goods are certified organic when they are not. This is why some critics call the indiscriminate use of the word organic on body care prod­ucts misleading if not downright fraudulent. What's a green mother to do?

        First, don't take anything you see on the front of a label too seriously. Instead, read the ingredients listed on the back. You'll often see the names of synthetic chemicals, such as surfactants (sudsing agents such as decyl polyglucose, sucrose cocoate, and cocamidopropyl betaine), emollients (coconut fatty acids, cetyl alcohol, emulsifying wax, glycerin), fragrance and preservatives (parabens, phenoxyethanol, ethylhexyl glycerin, grapefruit/citrus seed extracts, sorbates, benzoates), posing as “natural” ingredients in allegedly organic products. However, these synthetic chemicals are not natural and could not be used in food products that are certified organic.

Don't pay too much attention to what's called the “water phase” of a product. The latest trend in the world of “natural” and “organic” personal care products is to add “organic water” to conventional chemicals and then market the item as “all natural” and “organic.” Water in a product might be identified as hydrosols, infusions, juices, or gels. Shampoos, for example, generally contain 25 to 30 percent detergent/surfactant (human-made sudsing agents), synthetic thickeners, synthetic fragrances and preservatives, and, significantly, 70 to 75 percent water. Products with such a high percentage of water and a synthetic detergent are being marketed as organic even though, according to the National Organic Program, one may not count the water when calculating organic percentages to determine eligibility for organic status.

        Another trend in body care products that is proving to be highly profitable, and consequently has an immense follow­ing in the industry, is the creation of a new company name or the inclusion of the words organic or organics in the compa­ny's original name, with scant regard to its products' actual compositions.

In the organic food world, the USDA and other organic food producers do not permit a company to use the word organic in a company name unless the majority of the products that the company produces are composed of edible, minimally processed organic food ingredients—but in the personal care products industry, it happens all the time.

        While the National Organic Program does not expressly forbid this practice, and notes in its regulations that the appearance of organic in a brand name “does not inherently imply an organic production or handling claim,” the secretary of agriculture does have the authority to take action against the word's misuse. 

Further, according to the USDA's website, it is the department's intention to monitor the use of the word in company names and to work with the Federal Trade Commission to take action against its misuse. For some reason, however, personal care manufacturers have not been held to the same standard as food manufacturers. Makers of personal care products that actually follow the USDA's organic labeling guidelines are rare.

What about products imported from other countries that are claimed to be “all natural,” “organic,” “biodynamic,” or even “certified organic”? Though recently there has been an influx of such products, there is no official organic standard anywhere in the world that was originally writ­ten to include personal care products and that mirrors the rules for foods. To capitalize on consumers' growing inter­est in organic agriculture and healthier lifestyles, various European industry groups have created their own standards for “organic” and “natural” personal care products. These standards permit the use of synthetic preservatives and synthetic oleochemicals (i.e., human-made, highly pro­cessed detergents and emollients); some companies go so far as to incorrectly label certain ingredients as “natural,” even though these ingredients would never be permitted in a food product certified organic.

        Currently, various US industry-based groups are work­ing on creating for personal care products organic standards that are different from those used for foods. But why do we need additional standards when we already have the USDA's National Organic Program? Apparently, makers of synthetic personal care products find the standard for organic food too restrictive. The industry's standards for “organic” personal care products, presumably being created with little or no consumer input, are likely to include a wide range of syn­thetic oleochemicals, preservatives, and other human-made ingredients not permissible in USDA-regulated organic food products. The possible resulting multiple “organic” standards will do nothing to help the customer.

        Why is it necessary for organic body care merchandise to be held to a high standard? Think about drug patches. It is now known that substances are readily absorbed by the skin. Furthermore, when your skin is wet, such as during a bath or shower, it can absorb five times as much as it can when dry. Studies have shown that skin absorption and inhalation, not ingestion, are the primary routes by which chemical pol­lutants enter the body. Because chemicals can be so easily absorbed by the skin, and because they then enter the blood­stream directly without the opportunity to be broken down by digestion, it makes sense to have not a lower but a higher standard for organic body care products.

Organic” personal care products have become Wall Street's latest cash cow—and the cow is not organic. Adding the words natural and organic to product labels and market­ing copy can increase a company's revenues by an astonishing 20 percent or more per year. With so many companies, retailers, and marketers getting in on the game, the revenues of the “natural” personal care products industry have almost tripled in just the last three years, from $1.5 billion to $4 billion, and industry forecasts predict that that rate of growth will continue for the next few years.
        With so much money involved, parents need to stay aware and protect their families from the personal care products industry's flagrant deceptions.

— J A M E S   H A H N   &   D I A N A   K A Y E