I don’t know about you, but I’m always personally disappointed when brands I thought I could trust turn out to contain ingredients that are hazardous to my health. It makes me feel disgusted with big companies and the way they play fast and loose with our health, especially when they know better.
The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) has prepared a spreadsheet summarizing “Organic Cheater brand” products and their Hazard Rankings according to the Environmental Working Group’s “Skin Deep” Cosmetic Safety Database.
The tabs at the top of the spreadsheet list various brands horizontally: click each tab to view that brand’s product scores from the Skin De
ep” database. By far the majority of fake organic products score in the “Moderate Hazard” category.
Conversely, Dr. Bronner’s Skin Deep product scores show that the vast majority of true NOP-certified (USDA’s National Organic Program) organic personal care score in the safest “Low Hazard” category.
A couple of brands, Jason “Pure, Natural & Organic” and Nature’s Gate “Organics”, even had some of their fake organic products score in the unsafest “High Hazard” category.
Perhaps even more disturbing, two of the “organic cheater” brands who are the subject of OCA’s Complaint to USDA NOP, have reneged on their signed promise to provide product and ingredient information to Skin Deep so that their products’ safety can be assessed. Those brands are Eminence “Organic” Skin Care and Head “Organics”.
Another two brands, while they have not reneged on any promises, have also decided to not submit product and ingredient information to Skin Deep: Ilike “Organic” Skin Care and Surya Sapien “Organic”.
As noted in the Complaint, all these brands utilize surfactants made in part or entirely from petrochemicals as primary cleansing ingredients, which contain no organic agricultural material whatsoever. Eminence in particular deceptively claims that Alpha Olefin Sulfonate, the primary cleanser in its “Organic Stone Crop Bodywash”, is from a “plant source,” when in fact this cleanser is commercially available only in pure petrochemical form.
Both Nature’s Gate and Eminence do produce a few true USDA NOP certified organic products under their respective brands. However, the vast majority of their product lines are not certified under the USDA’s National Organic Program, because their main clean
sing and moisturizing ingredients are generally based on conventional or petrochemical, rather than organic agricultural, material.
As a general rule when shopping for organic personal care, check for the USDA seal to be sure you’re buying true organic personal care rather than fake organic products.
VIEW THE ORGANIC SKINCARE PRODUCTS SPREADSHEET
Very good info to have. Thank you for posting!
Szep Elet strongly supports movement toward clearer AND more universal standards for qualification and communication of what is and is not “organic”. The clarity and understanding of, adherence to and compliance with standards in the U.S. has been lacking. Furthermore, there has been little progress toward universally understood and accepted … See Morestandards or requirements that cross international boundaries.
No one from the OCA or other parties behind the complaint has ever contacted Szep Elet for information. And the portion of the complaint which covers ilike organic skin care products totals only 2 short paragraphs yet includes statements such as “…few if any of the ingredients are actually organic.”
While the U.S. is a very important market for ilike organic skin care, our products are distributed in 41 other countries around the world (under the Ilcsi organic skin care brand in all countries outside of N. America). Several years ago it was decided that our products would be certified through the widely recognized and respected German based certifier BDIH.
Thanks for weighing in! I completely agree that the official organic standards realm in the U.S. has been and continues to be an embarrassment compared to European standards and, as a result, not all is as it should be here and confusion reigns.
Melange Public Relations says:
“Several years ago it was decided that our products would be certified through the widely recognized and respected German based certifier BDIH.”
BDIH certifies “Natural” claims only. The BDIH standard has no organic requirement. It disallows petrochemicals in cleansing ingredients, and allows only a few nature-identical synthetic preservatives. It allows sulfation and hydrogenation.
BDIH is a strong “Natural” claim, but doesn’t certify Szep Elet as an organic brand. The position of the Organic Consumers Association, is that, if Szep Elet wants to credibly market their products as organic in the United States, they need to be USDA certified.
The fact that Szep Elet wants to pass off its BDIH “Natural” certification as an organic claim means that they either don’t understand or don’t respect what organic means to US consumers.
Thanks for responding for OCA, Alexis! I’m glad to provide a forum for topics like this and add to our understanding of organic and natural certification standards.