The event, hosted alongside the HBA Expo, will take place in New York on 29-30th Septmeber. The Masterclass aims to de-mystify natural & organic cosmetic standards for personal care and ingredient firms.

The natural personal care products industry is seeing a new trend where retailers are demanding certified products in response to consumer confusion about natural and organic beauty products. The use of the terms ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ is presently unregulated, which has caused manufactures to verify the origins of their products via independent third party certifications, such as the one issued by the Natural Products Association.

The new trend is highlighted by the fact that Whole Foods Market, the world’s largest natural product retailer, will only be marketing certified organic personal care products next year.

Retailers and manufacturers alike are making a new found commitment to third party verification schemes. In Europe too natural and organic retailers require certification to be considered for sale in stores. The same is true for some retailers in Asia, such as a leading natural food retailer, Country Farm.

In order to combat a large number of products that market on false natural and organic claims, Organic Monitor’s new Masterclass helps companies take the certification route and look at the practical implications of natural and organic cosmetic standards.

Some brands are using organic ingredients to promote their products as ‘organic’, although the formulation remains far from entirely organic. Organic Monitor will be critically reviewing the various natural and organic cosmetic standards in North American and other regions to provide clarity and transparency on ‘natural’ personal care products.

Whole Foods Market is implementing new companywide standards to ensure that claims on product labels are accurate. All suppliers must be fully compliant by June 1, 2011 or will not be sold in their stores.

The company’s new set of requirements apply to all personal care products and cosmetics which use the word “organic” in any way on the product label, including the word “organic” in the brand name.  These new requirements are going to adversely affect current suppliers, and Whole Foods Market is working with suppliers to transition their label claims to meet the following standards:

• Products making an “Organic” claim (e.g. organic shampoo) must be certified to the USDA’s National Organic Program standard for organic products, which requires products to contain more than 95% organic ingredients.
• Products making a “made with organic ingredients” claim must be certified to the USDA’s National Organic Program standard for Made with Organic products which requires products to use more than 70% organic ingredients.
• Products make a “Contains organic ingredients” claim must be certified to the NSF/ANSI 305 Organic Personal Care Standard.
• Products listing an organic ingredient in the “Ingredients” listing must have the ingredient certified to the USDA NOP standard.

According to Whole Foods Market, this decision aims at ensuring that claims on product labels are accurate. “Our shoppers do not expect the definition of organic to change substantially between the food and non-food aisles of our stores,” said Joe Dickson, quality standards coordinator for Whole Foods Market. “We believe that the ‘organic’ claim used on personal care products should have just as strong a meaning to the ‘organic’ claim used on food products, which is currently regulated by the USDA’s National Organic Program.”

The study of nearly 4,000 consumer products discovered unverifiable information and blatant lies regarding their claim to be 100% natural, all natural, organic, or otherwise environmental friendly.

The rise of the ‘green’ craze has not only driven manufacturers and brands to search for creative marketing strategies to appeal to the new green conscious consumer, but also the 300+ environmental certification programmes are competing for a piece of the market.  Shoppers are now bombarded by irrelevant and deceptive labels, claiming to be something they are not.

Green, natural, eco-friendly, recyclable, fragrance free, we have now seen and heard it all, but are they true?  Sadly, as the study shows, 98% are false.

You may wonder how this can be true; and think to yourself: don’t I, as a consumer, have the right to be protected against such lies and deception?  Well, trust me, you are not the only one posing this question.  But unfortunately government agencies that regulate drugs, food, and personal care products, like the FDA, do not define or regulate the use of the word “natural” on personal care or cosmetic products.

Within the government agencies regulating the labeling and advertising of cosmetics there is a lack of consensus on what the term “natural” actually means.  This has led to there being very little guidance on the use of “natural” on labels and in advertising.

The majority of consumers believe that “natural” products come from nature, which gives consumers a false sense of security about their safety.  In some consumers minds “natural” is synonymous with safe, but be warned not all things natural are safe.

Manufacturers and marketers alike are capitalizing on the unregulated terms that carry significant “green” appeal, like “natural”, “non-toxic”, and “fragrance free”, and by doing so are gravely misleading consumers, and in some cases just flat out lying.

This is not to say that all products with “natural” labels are not “natural”, but more likely than not the products claiming to be all “natural” include more than just natural ingredients.

Reading the fine print on labels will not necessarily help either. Companies are not required to disclose the use of some substances believed to be dangerous.  TerraChoice, has written about the 7 most common misleading and deceptive tactics used by manufacturers and marketers, and they are as follows:

1. The Sin of the Hidden Trade-off suggests that a product is ‘green’ based on a narrow set of attributes without attention to other important environmental issues. Paper, for example, is not necessarily environmentally-preferable just because it comes from a sustainably-harvested forest.
2. The Sin of No Proof happens when environmental assertions are not backed up by evidence or third-party certification. One common example is facial tissue products that claim various percentages of post-consumer recycled content without providing any supporting details.
3. The Sin of Vagueness occurs when a marketing claim is so lacking in specifics it becomes meaningless. ‘”All-natural” is an example of this Sin. Arsenic, uranium, mercury, and formaldehyde are all naturally occurring, and poisonous. “All natural” isn’t necessarily “green.”
4. The Sin of Worshiping False Labels is when marketers create a false suggestion or certification-like image to mislead consumers into thinking that a product has been through a legitimate green certification process. One example of this sin is a brand of aluminum foil with certification-like images that show the name of the company’s own in-house environmental program for which there is no explanation. This sin has been added to TerraChoice’s list since it’s previous report in 2007.
5. The Sin of Irrelevance arises when an environmental issue unrelated to the product is emphasized. One example is the claim that a product is “CFC-free,”  since CFCs are banned by law.
6. The Sin of Lesser of Two Evils occurs when an environmental claim makes consumers feel ‘green’ about a product category that is itself lacking in environmental benefits. Organic cigarettes are an example of this phenomenon.
7. The Sin of Fibbing is when environmental claims are outright false. One common example is products falsely claiming to be Energy Star certified.

As marketers and manufacturers are working hard to deceive consumers to make their product appear as something it really is not, it is our duty as consumers to educate ourselves and be able to find the 2% of products that are actually natural. And here is how you can start:

• Don’t trust the label as fact.  Understand that just cause it says natural, does not mean it really is.
• Shop with a discerning eye.  Trust your gut.  If it is too good to be true it most likely is, and the claim is just advertising hype.
• Read the ingredients carefully.  Fake natural products often will have a long list of ingredients full of chemicals that may be harmful.
• Compare similar products.  Look at the ingredients of one product that claims to be natural and one that does not, and see if there are any differences.
• When in doubt check with a health professional.
• Research the product.  How is it made and/or processed?  What is the origin and source of the “natural” ingredients?

The complete findings of the 2009 TerraChoice study can be found here.

The demand for natural and organic products and cosmetics is rapidly growing, and at the same speed grows the interest of companies that provide products that aim to be “green.”

Consumer’s main concern is the amount of information available, true or false, on daily use home, personal hygiene products and even food that may be harmful to their health.  The same products that every family member uses on a daily basis. This concern plus “green living” becoming a popular issue has helped feed companies’ need to manufacture goods that are labelled organic.

Even large retailers like Wal-Mart in the U.S or Tesco in Britain have started their own line of natural and organic products to answer to this large consumer demand.

In the case of organic cosmetic products there is no government regulation as to natural and organic cosmetics. Leaving this practice up to the company itself to decide if their products are worthy or not of being labelled natural. Some companies have adopted the practice of privately regulating their products in order to label them accordingly. The regulation rules used by some companies have been developed by groups like the French organic certifier Ecocert, the Soil Association in Britain and the recently established Oasis, or Organic and Sustainable Industry Standards in the United States.

In Oasis’ case, they have set standards of organic labeling on products that contain a minimum of 85% of organic ingredients.  A minimum that will be raised to 95% in the next three years. Oasis is a trade association composed of some of the largest groups in the cosmetic industry, such as Estée Lauder and L’Oréal. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s norms are a little higher allowing organic labeling on food products that have 95% of organic ingredients in them.

It is very important when buying cosmetic products to look for the organic label of certification since it gives the consumer a variety of information: the brand name of the manufacturer, certification details and names of the ingredients. This gives you the opportunity to check what is really used in your product of choice.