Natural Hair & Skin Care
Toxic chemicals are everywhere. Every day we are exposed to risk without even thinking about it."Education" is the key to empowering consumers to see through the 'green-wash' of slick marketing to recognise the products for what they really are. Misleading labels and clever advertising relating to organic content often mask the use of potentially toxic ingredients, which seriously undermines the integrity of the organic claim".
Natural Skin Care ... What does "natural" mean?
As the number of people who are concerned about toxins in our environment grows, more and more hair & skin care companies are jumping on the "natural" and "organic" hair & skin care product bandwagon.
But what does "natural" and "organic" mean when we see them on a mainstream manufacturers hair & skin care product label?
But what does "natural" and "organic" mean when we see them on a mainstream manufacturers hair & skin care product label?
Natural skin care - is it really any better for us?
Our skin is the largest eliminatory organ in the body. It is a two-way membrane. Toxins are eliminated through the skin via perspiration and absorbed through the skin into the body's circulation system, through hair follicles and sebaceous glands, but not through the sweat glands. One square inch of skin contains approximately 65 hairs, 100 sebaceous glands and 650 sweat glands. Every square inch of your skin is like a thousand open mouths, absorbing into the body most of what is put on it.
What skin care products are truly natural and proactive?
Skin care manufacturers are not supposed to claim that their products penetrate the skin. If they did, the products would then be labelled as "drugs" and would be governed by much stricter regulations. However, it is now recognised that the skin does absorb many ingredients in hair & skin care preparations. This is both good and bad. Good, because it means our skin can be nourished from the outside with some wonderful ingredients. Bad, because some skin care manufacturers can use harmful chemical ingredients that would never be allowed to be taken orally, but are still absorbed into our system, through our skin.
What does “NATURAL” and the ubiquitous “ORGANIC” mean on skin care product labels?
Nowhere does the idea of "natural" or "organic" take a more gratuitous bruising than in the hair & skin care industry. If we first take the word "natural" and look it up in the Concise Oxford Dictionary we would find this description of natural thus; "existing in, or caused by nature; not artificial; uncultivated; wild existing in natural state; not disguised or altered".
It seems pretty clear what "natural" actually means to me! Does it to you? However, when vested interests in the skin care industry get hold of the word natural - they put a whole new slant on it. It may seem pretty clear to you and me exactly what we mean by natural but for the marketing men they obviously haven't read the dictionary and start bending the interpretation of natural to suit themselves.
It seems pretty clear what "natural" actually means to me! Does it to you? However, when vested interests in the skin care industry get hold of the word natural - they put a whole new slant on it. It may seem pretty clear to you and me exactly what we mean by natural but for the marketing men they obviously haven't read the dictionary and start bending the interpretation of natural to suit themselves.
Many labels have long lists of chemical names, some followed by the phrase "derived from ..." (some natural substance). This is grossly misleading for consumers who are looking for genuine safe hair & skin care products. Synthetic Chemicals are anything but natural.
When chemicals such as Cocamide DEA or Sodium Hydroxysultaine are followed by the words derived rom coconut oil" the consumer is led to believe that these synthetic chemicals must somehow be "natural". While this may be true in some cases where a natural oil or extract is actually used, it is ultimately irrelevant because what you end up with after the chemical solvent extraction and processing is usually anything but natural or pure. It is just another chemical concoction with some rather awful sounding long names to describe the process the original "natural" substance went through.
Now what about "ORGANIC"? Again if we look in the dictionary for the word organic it is pretty obvious to us what we expect to find as far as safe natural products in general are concerned. Would you say in the context you are expecting to use or find the term organic that this would be a fair description;
"produced and involving production without the use of pesticides, artificial fertilizers or synthetic chemicals."
To me it seems rather elementary that when describing a product as organic that the above is exactly what the customer would expect.
However to the marketing men this is not what they mean by organic. Let's delve a little deeper into this play on words.
Now what about "ORGANIC"? Again if we look in the dictionary for the word organic it is pretty obvious to us what we expect to find as far as safe natural products in general are concerned. Would you say in the context you are expecting to use or find the term organic that this would be a fair description;
"produced and involving production without the use of pesticides, artificial fertilizers or synthetic chemicals."
To me it seems rather elementary that when describing a product as organic that the above is exactly what the customer would expect.
However to the marketing men this is not what they mean by organic. Let's delve a little deeper into this play on words.
To create Cocamide DEA, a foaming agent found in some shampoos, requires the addition of a synthetic chemical and known carcinogen, Diethanolamine - DEA, to the coconut oil. It is therefore no longer natural, or safe! If we look at the term "organic" on a label, we usually think it means "grown and cultivated without the use of chemicals" as stated above. That is the conclusion most skin care companies would like us to come to when they use the rather loose term organic.
Unscrupulous hair & skin care companies are cynically using the chemistry definition of "organic" - which is also defined in the dictionary as "a compound that contains a carbon atom" to confuse consumers. This is known in the trade as confusion advertising so the real picture becomes blurred.
Carbon is found in everything that has ever lived. Vested interests - by using this definition of organic, they are saying that a toxic petrochemical preservative called Methyl Paraben is "organic" because it was formed from natural leaves that rotted over thousands of years to become crude oil, which was then used to make this toxic totally un-natural preservative.
How absurd is this when consumers are looking for natural or organic hair & skin care products?
The play on the word organic gets even worse. An increasing number of companies are now claiming to use "organic" herbs in their products. But what about the rest of the ingredients? Are they safe? Are they "natural" or from an "organic" source? Surely there must be an authority that governs the use of the term "organic" on labels? The simple answer is NO!
The play on the word organic gets even worse. An increasing number of companies are now claiming to use "organic" herbs in their products. But what about the rest of the ingredients? Are they safe? Are they "natural" or from an "organic" source? Surely there must be an authority that governs the use of the term "organic" on labels? The simple answer is NO!
