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Check out this article from Mothering Magazine! |









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