In relation to this title… last things first.
Unfortunately there aren’t many rules to break and that’s because there is no governments or authorizing bodies to ensure that ‘organic’ claims on skin care and personal care products are genuine.
The same goes for ‘natural’ It appears that cosmetic manufacturers can claim an ingredient is natural, even if the raw material has been synthesized with chemicals, heat and pressure. The resulting compound is far from the original pure substance that they started with.
And that Bunny emblem that professes the product ingredients are not tested on animals… well that only means that the cosmetic manufacturer or its’ agents have not tested the ingredients on animals for the past 5 years.
Big players in the cosmetic manufacturing industry can lobby against the introduction of legislation that would protect the consumer from unknowingly purchasing products that contain ingredients known to cause cancer in laboratory animals Not only that, they can also add a few herbal ingredients to their products and claim them to be ‘Organic’!
If you ask most consumers, many will agree that if they choose ‘natural’ and/or ‘organic’ products, they expect it to be as pure as possible. Meaning, little or no chemical action and no synthetic chemical ingredients.
The trouble is… the chemical industries definition of ‘organic’ is ‘anything that contains ‘carbon’.
That means that leaves that have rotted over thousands of years to produce crude oil and then synthesized to make skin care ingredients can be named as ‘organic’!
And so, this allows cosmetic manufacturers a loop hole.
The best way to ensure your organic purchase is genuine it to make sure there is a Certification label on the product…. That means a third party independent body has issued the proof that the products hold up to the scrutiny of an audit trail, from growth of the raw material, harvest, storage and transport and importantly the processing.
Please be aware of the bogus ‘certification’ that some companies use.
* Applying a mock up of a label created by their art department to fool unwary consumers.
* A chemical name followed by a natural ingredient in (brackets)…(coconut)
* Claiming to be ‘derived from’…there has been a chemical change to the raw ingredient by synthetic means.
* Unpronounceable chemical sounding names on products that claims to be ‘organic’
An example of the blatant cheat is the misuse of information for the chemical foaming agent Cocomidopropyl Betaine, used in many shampoos and body washes, including baby products.
Some manufactures will leave out the chemical sounding part of the name and you will see on the label ‘Coco Betaine’ and some times (coconut) following. It would be reasonable to assume that this is a ‘natural’ ingredient.
In reality, the coconut oil has been boiled with ammonia and a toxic herbicide… far from ‘natural’ and certainly no longer a pure ingredient!
There is also a problem with contamination of some ingredients during the manufacturing process. As this is unintentional, you won’t see it listed …
General
