Are “natural” beauty products really clean?

The Dirty Scoop        

As a consumer, you’re probably seeing the word “natural” labeled on so many beauty and personal care products these days. Would you pay more for a product if it said natural on the label? According to a 2018 statistic, many people will. Many companies make claims just to grab your attention and market to a more widespread audience. But what does natural actually mean? The FDA has not established a regulatory definition for the word “natural” in cosmetic labeling. So, by adding just one or two ingredients, anyone can label their product as natural, which can make it very mis-leading if you don’t do your homework. 

Another eye-catcher you may be seeing lately is “paraben-free”. Maybe some companies are taking the hint and trying to create cleaner products for consumers. That’s great they aren’t using parabens, but what about all of the other ingredients on our banned list? 

Muddy Marketing

There are a few phrases that companies will use to market their “natural” or “organic” product. Most consumers will overlook the differences in these phrases; however, these differences have a significant impact on the end product. Here are some of the phrases you may see and what they ultimately mean:

This Product is Natural - Like we said before, the word ‘natural’ doesn’t have a hard and fast definition from the FDA. Companies can use the word natural loosely. Real loosely. 

When it comes to the word “organic”, there are much more strict guidelines regarding using this phrase on a product label. For more information on labeling requirements, check the FDA website on cosmetics The basics are summed up below:

This Product is Certified Organic – This product contains at least 95% or more organic ingredients and it has been sent off to a certifying agency to certify the product as a whole. This is typically the most foolproof way. When you see an organic certification, the product is as clean as it gets.

This Product is Organic – This product contains at least 95% or more organic ingredients (but the product as a whole has not been certified). This doesn’t mean that the product is bad or that the company is lying. Getting individual products certified can be tens of thousands of dollars. It also means that every year a company pays the certifying agency a fee to license the certification logo. Many small brands cannot afford to do this. 

This Product is Made with Certified Organic Ingredients - This product contains at least 70% and up to 94% certified organic ingredients. Individual ingredients have been certified organic, but the product cannot been certified organic as a whole (because it falls under 95% organic). 

This Product is Made with Organic Ingredients - This product contains at least 70% and up to 94% organic ingredients. Individual ingredients have NOT been certified organic.

Why Isn’t Everyone CO, or Use CO Ingredients?

It is a great question and one that we’ve been asked many times. Like we mentioned above, getting a certification for a single product (and then licensing the right to use the certification logo on that product) can cost several thousand dollars. When you’re a small company that sells tons of types of products, you’re looking at some heavy investments. 

We believe that you do not necessarily need a logo in order to remain authentic. When you are honest from the beginning and work hard to educate, provide honest information and disclose any ‘gray areas’ with your customers, you build trust. That’s what BaeBlu does. 

Real Resources

The most important thing you can do if you’re looking for truly clean products, is your research. Don’t fall for the hype if there is no truth behind it. 

Some good resources to look up many beauty and personal care products: 

• EWG's skindeep data base - an online guide with safety ratings for more than 78,000 cosmetics and other personal care products and more than 2,500 brands. 

• The Think Dirty app – a product-comparison app for cosmetics and personal care products.

*We are still a small company, so you won’t find us in either database (yet). We’ve looked into pricing and actually had plans to work with Think Dirty before the Corona Virus impacted our business. Catch us on there soon!*

BaeBlu Standards

So, what does natural mean to us? If you distilled the word down into its most natural meaning (pun intended), then that is what natural means. It means that it is a product that occurs in nature and is not synthetically produced. 99% of our products are 100% natural. The other 1% is 99% natural. Very few of our products contain phenoxyethanol, a synthetic preservative. If you want to learn about that, click on the blog we wrote here.

You Can Fact Check Us

Every product on our website has its own list of ingredients. Take the time to check out our what we do and don’t use list on our website as well. We aren’t labeling our products as natural and organic because it’s the “cool” thing to do. We truly want the very best ingredients for our customers! We are a full disclosure company. If you don’t find the information you’re looking for on our website, please contact us via email or phone and we will be happy to answer any questions you may have!