Achieve Health       Natural and Organic

Organic cosmetics for Natural Beauty

by Narelle Chenery

copyright © June 2003 Organic and Natural Enterprise Group

As the number of people who are concerned about toxins in our environment grows, more and more cosmetic companies are seen to be jumping on the natural and organic bandwagon. But what does natural and organic mean when we see it on a product label? How do we know that what we are buying is really natural and organic? What are the natural alternatives to chemicals? And is natural really 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 systemic circulation, through hair follicles and sebaceous glands (not through sweat glands). 

One square inch of skin contains 65 hairs, 100 sebaceous glands, and 650 sweat glands.

Cosmetic manufacturers are not supposed to claim that their products penetrate our skin. If they did, the products would then be labelled a 'drug' and henceforth be governed by much stricter regulations. This is both good and bad. Good because it means your skin can be nourished from the outside with some wonderful ingredients. Bad because it means some cosmetic manufacturer can put into their products ingredients that would never be allowed to be taken orally. But they can still be absorbed into our system, through our skin.

WHAT DOES “NATURAL” AND “ORGANIC” MEAN ON PRODUCT LABELS?

Nowhere does the idea of “natural” or “organic” take a more gratuitous bruising than the cosmetics industry.

If we look at the term “natural” we probably define it as “existing in, or formed by nature; not artificial”. Many labels have long lists of chemical names, some followed by the phrase “derived from . . .” (some natural substance). This is misleading to consumers. When chemicals such as Cocamide DEA or Sodium Hydroxysultaine are followed by the term “derived from coconut oil” the consumer is led to believe that these synthetic chemicals must be natural. While this may be true in some cases; it is ultimately irrelevant because what you end up with after the chemical processing is usually anything but natural. For example, to create Cocamide DEA, a foaming agent 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,” we usually think it means ‘grown and cultivated without the use of chemicals’. That is the conclusion most cosmetics companies would like us to make when we see the term “organic” on a label. Some of those companies are cynically using the chemistry definition of “organic” - meaning a compound that contains a carbon atom. Carbon is found in anything that has ever lived. By using this definition of organic, they are saying that a petrochemical preservative called Methyl Paraben is “organic” because it was formed from leaves that rotted over thousands of years to become crude oil, which was then used to make this preservative.

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