Industry body reveals beauty brands do not live up to ‘natural claims’

Organic Monitor, the research body that specialises in the organics industry, has this month released a report assessing the truth behind ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ cosmetics claims.

What natural and organic brands are making the grade? looks at the growing trend for ‘natural’ products, and the influx of big beauty brands trying to cheat their way into the market.

The experts selected over 50 cosmetic brands making clean, green marketing claims and rated their ‘naturalness’ out of 10 based on their ingredients.

It turns out that very few brands’ natural claims stand up to scrutiny, and even those labelled ‘100% natural’ still contain synthetic preservatives, emollients and surfactants.

Unsurprisingly they found that the most truly natural products were those certified by a recognised organic body such as the Soil Association (ahem, like Pai…)

It’s high time Colipa (the European Cosmetics Association) and Cosmetics Directive imposed some proper regulations on the use of the terms ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ on product labelling before these claims lose their true meaning and credibility altogether.

In the mean time, this current ‘greenwashing’ epidemic is one that savvy consumers should be aware of.

With so many companies jumping on the organic bandwagon, the only way you can really be sure of a product’s natural credentials is by reading the ingredients list.

This can sometimes be a bit of a minefield, so over the next couple of days I’ll be blogging about what exactly to look out for and which ingredients to embrace and avoid.

Watch this space…..