| Scare stories and suspicions abound about many common ingredients found in skin care products.Its worth remembering that the effects of long-term exposure to chemicals is simply not known. But choosing the natural/organic route is not as straightforward as you might think.
In today’s world of sophisticated marketing and branding many skincare manufactures and suppliers promote their products with elegant and expensive advertising campaigns which often use reassuring but misleading descriptions such as “Pure", “Natural” “Herbal", “Botanical” etc
The Myths
Products branded ‘Natural’ won’t contain synthetic chemicals - Wrong
'Natural' can be anything from 100% natural ingredients, one natural extract in amongst many more chemicals or indeed as part of a product name only.
Products branded ‘Organic’ won’t contain synthetic chemicals - Wrong
In skin care products 'Organic' is a loose term and shouldn't be taken at face value. Whilst it's easy to understand what makes an organic chicken organic, a cosmetic product might for example be labeled that it contains '100% organic essential oils', but this could be the only organic component in a coctail of toxic chemicals
Soil Association certified products won't contain
non-organic ingredients - wrong
The Soil Association's symbol on products means it runs an organic certification
scheme, which companies pay for. BUT it allows for a percentage of non-organic
ingredients, but does stipulate that they be non-GM, only used if an organic
alternative isn't available and that they come from a restricted list
of chemicals that are deemed minimally damaging to both human health and
the environment. Be aware that there are no global organic standards as
yet, so if you are buying imported US or Australian goods, they'll be
subject to different laws/certification schemes. |
