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 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.