Having their say

Industry Standards for Natural Body Care Products.



Last week, an annoucement was made by Whole Foods and OASIS (Organic and Sustainable Industry Standards) about their plans to help shoppers select the highest level of natural and organic products. Another organization called The Natural Standard, led by Burt's Bee executive Mike Indursky and the National Products Association (NPA) has also been working for over a year to come up with their standard for the industry.

Each organization serves different purposes and segments of the marketplace.

For Whole Foods, "Premium" products are their goal and to reach this goal, they have a list of roughly 250 ingredients banned from use in products from companies that would want to use the "Premium Beauty Care" Label. They plan to use a third party certifier to make these determination on products.

OASIS will use a third party certifier as well to judge a product's organic content before that product can bear the OASIS seal. For now, ingredients that are non-organic such as "Citric Acid and conventional ingredients used to maintain shelf life like Phenxythanol", will be allowed in products with an OASIS seal.

The Natural Standard will require products defined as "natural" to have 95 % of all ingredients be natural ("ingredients that come from a purposeful, renewable and plentiful source found in nature adn don't use synthetic/harsh chemicals"). This standard will be determined by using a third party certifier as well.

What will this mean for small natural body care manufacturers? It's not mentioned if these standards will apply to small manufacturers or not, but it will mean stepping up to the plate and demanding only high quality ingredients in products. Know your suppliers and ask questions about the ingredients. Be informed.

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