The folks at the National Organic Standards Board are recommending the USDA crack down on so-called-organic beauty products and develop standards and a policing system specifically for personal care.
Currently, products that display the USDA Organic label include agricultural ingredients that meet the USDA’s standards for organic food, which means the agency isn’t regulating products plastered with the word “organic” but that contain synthetics. This new program would mean products that contain synthetic ingredients would be policed–if they didn’t meet the new organic guidelines, they couldn’t say they were organic. Confused yet? Here’s an easy way to make sure you’re slathering yourself in the most natural products out there: Follow our lead, and check out the winners of our Beauty with a Conscience Awards. All of the products passed our test–they are literally the cleanest products we could find! Try a few, and let us know what you think.
I think that this is a good development. This way, companies that really are qualified organic have backing for their practices and consumers understand what they are getting.
As a new small business dedicated to producing bath and beauty care that is safer and healthier for consumers, I back this 100%. However, it has to be economically feasible for us small producers (and there are so many out there) to be able to obtain certification for our products. Right now, we would also kill to be able to label our products USDA certified organic but its just not an investment we can handle financially so we produce, educate people on our ingredients and are very open about what we use and why its safer thank what they buy in the grocery store and malls and hope that they have confidence enough in us and trust our passion and products to use them.