New Natural Skin Care Standards
The Natural Products Association (NPA) has a standard and a seal for certifying natural products. You will start to see products certified by the NPA on store shelves by Thanksgiving.
Under this program, skin care products are certified natural, not organic. This will give some definition to what it means to be natural for skin care products. Up until now, the term natural has not been legally defined for cosmetics, skin care or personal care products.
These new standards are definitely a step in the right direction and certain currently allowed synthetic ingredients will be eliminated in 2010 to improve the standards.
However, the current standards do allow hydrolyzed proteins, a source of hidden MSG and hydrogenated oils. Both of these types of ingredients I consider unacceptable in natural skin care products. Since a great deal of what you put on your skin is absorbed into your bloodstream, why would you use products on your skin with ingredients you would not eat?
One major drawback to the NPA standards is that in order to be certified, there is a hefty fee. Many small natural skin care companies that use the best natural skin care ingredients may find the cost prohibitive and may not be able to afford certification.
Many of these small companies’ products are actually superior to some of the certified products from the larger, mainstream companies that can afford to pay the price. This will mislead the consumer into thinking that the products certified by the NPA are superior to those of the small all natural skin care companies that actually do have superior products with higher quality ingredients.
Certified so far are seven Natural Lips products by Aubrey Organics, nine products by Burt’s Bees and two body cremes by JR Watkins Natural Apothecary.
The Steering Committee & Partners for this new standard are
Aubrey Organics
Badger Balm
Burt’s Bees
Trilogy Fragrances
Weleda
My advice, as always, is to read the ingredients list, even on products certified organic by any standard or certified natural by the new natural standards.
These new standards aren’t perfect as you can see with some of the undesirable ingredients allowed. Also, with Burt’s Bees at the helm and with many of their products containing fragrance, and the downgrading of some of their ingredients to include canola oil since their takeover by Clorox, it is just wise to make sure you know what’s in the products you use and make sure it meets with the level of safety/risk you’re comfortable with.
Click here to shop for truly healthy natural skin care products.
Christine H. Farlow, D.C.
The Ingredients Investigator
Protecting You From Harmful Ingredients…
