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100% Natural? . . . . Almost 100% Certainly Not

Posted by on June 21, 2012 · 22 Comments 

When trawling through various discussion groups, especially on LinkedIn, one of the most common claims companies make for their products is “all – natural” or “100% natural”. Depending upon my mood at the time of reading, I am sometimes moved to visit the web site and check out the ingredients in these “100% natural” products. It is no exaggeration so state that they are NOT 100% natural in well over 90% of cases. Whilst I must admit that I am talking about a fairly small sample size (tens, rather than thousands), it is clear that a large proportion of one sector of the market are making inaccurate claims. Is this serious? The answer depends upon whether or not you feel the consumer should be given the truth. Does it have an impact on safety? Not directly, but it is still misleading consumers.

I have seen it written that there is no clear definition of “natural” and, also, that there are many interpretations of “natural”, but I believe that this is being confused with “organic”, and that a definition of “natural” is both clear and simple. Only two questions need to be asked:

1)      Does the substance exist in nature?

2)      Is the substance extracted from nature without any chemical modification?

Only if the answer to both questions is yes, can the substance be truly described as “natural”.

If the substance does not exist in nature, it cannot be described as “natural”, even if natural substances have been used exclusively in its manufacture. This can only be described as “nature-derived”. However, taking the definition of “nature-derived” to its logical conclusion, unless you actually create new matter, everything is “nature-derived”; the only question is to how many stages of processing has the substance been exposed. This introduces the concept of “degrees of processing”. Given that so few cosmetic ingredients are truly natural, how many degrees of processing are acceptable to keep the ingredient as close to “natural” as possible? This is where it becomes entirely subjective, and crosses over into the realm of “organic” criteria, where there is an increasing number of different commercial organisations each promoting their own (subjective) view of what constitutes “organic” for cosmetics. This creates confusion for consumers on two levels. The profusion of different standards is an obvious source of confusion, but it seems to me that many people confuse “organic” and “natural” – a situation not discouraged by those involved in the market sector. These terms are NOT interchangeable. A high proportion of ingredients certified as “organic” (by one or more certification bodies) are NOT natural, as they don’t exist in nature and, therefore, a certified “organic” product cannot automatically be promoted as “all-natural”, unless it truly is, of course!

Another trap for the unwary claimant is the use of “nature-identical” substances. Can a “nature-identical” substance be described as 100% natural? I think that this is, at best, debatable. Part of the consideration here should be the source of the raw materials used to manufacture the “nature-identical” moiety. There are two common examples of the use of “nature-identical” ingredients – potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate. As far as I am aware, there is no natural source of these ingredients and all the usage in cosmetics is from synthetic production. Moreover, both are manufactured from unequivocally petrochemical sources and, despite petroleum/oil being entirely natural, many companies using these ingredients also claim “no petrochemicals”. The use of petrochemically-derived substances invalidates such claims.

I have absolutely no personal bias/preference for natural, nature-identical or nature-derived ingredients, but I do have issues with misleading and false claims made for those ingredients, and products containing them.

If you see a claim for “all-natural” cosmetics, the chances are that it’s not true, unless you are VERY forgiving in your definition of “natural”.

 

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More about the author:  Dene Godfrey has been involved with preservatives for cosmetics since 1981, from both technical and commercial angles and has a degree in chemistry. Read more from this author

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  • http://colinsbeautypages.co.uk/ Colin

    I agree with you Dene.  I am automatically suspicious of any product that is claiming to be natural.  

    • Sue Apito

      Did Dene say he was suspicious?  I must have missed that.  While there is no legal definition it is unfair to leave the reader with the idea that there are no criteria – voluntary or not.  I still like the criteria I drafted many years ago when I founded the Natural Ingredient Resource Center.  Don’t shoot the messenger but I do think there are true natural ingredients and I work very hard as a consumer to choose natural when those options exist. Have you ever attended the Natural Products Expo?  Clearly natural means something to a whole lot of people!!  And there are more than a few organizations that have standards and criteria and “member seal” programs to help educate consumers what “they” mean when using the term natural to describe their products or ingredients.  Now “my” criteria did not eliminate ingredients/products simply because a chemical reaction too place.  But minimal processing was very important to the criteria: http://www.naturalingredient.org/naturalingredients.htm

  • http://colinsbeautypages.co.uk/ Colin

    Incidentally, am I the only person who finds the idea of natural insecticides slightly bizarre?  Are the insects supposed to appreciate being killed in a totally natural way?

  • Maggie Mahboubian

    There is an issue with claiming something is organic as well.  The law allows 5% of ingredients in a formulation to come from non-organic sources which most likely are synthetically derived.  This may not be an issue for skincare (since that allows for the preservative system to be included) as much as it is for natural perfumes.  That 5% can be significant and result in a fragrance that is not what it is claimed to be, i.e. a natural, organic perfume.

    • Dene62

      I agree, Maggie, but I would not describe any organic standards as “law”. As far as I am aware, all organic standards are determined by self-appointed, commercially-driven certification bodies with no legislative powers whatsoever. The USDA may be slightly different (I am not certain), but they are atypica, if this is the casel.

      • Maggie Mahboubian

        The only option for organic certification of personal care products is through the USDA which as far as I know sets the legal standards.  Going through the process is voluntary, but mandatory if you want to say your product “certified organic” (which is what I was referring to above).  However, you can call out organic ingredients in your deck without having to go through the certification process and you can get third party certification.  It’s all very circuitous and I haven’t even gotten crossed that bridge yet; it’s that daunting. 

        • Dene62

          It is important to stress that this may be the only option(?) in the USA, but there are plenty of other options beyond your borders!

          • Maggie Mahboubian

            Of course!  And yes, I lived and worked in Europe (Britain, Spain and Switzerland to be exact) and have some familiarity with the notion of foreign exchange.  As soon as I find that investor willing to sink a couple million into expanding my business globally I will look into those options!  For the time being I’ll have to muddle along the best I can, and that ain’t all bad, baby. 

          • Sue Apito

            Companies in the USA also get products certified to the NSF/ANSI 305 standard – recognized by Whole Foods and many others.

            Here is a helpful table: http://tilth.org/certification/standards/standards-and-regulatons

    • Sue Apito

      Dear Maggie – I am not sure whose criteria you are using for organic – but your comments are not factual when it comes to USDA Certified Organic. The law for claiming “100 percent organic”–Product must contain (excluding water and salt) only organically produced ingredients. Products may display the USDA Organic Seal and must display the certifying agent’s name.”“Organic”–Product must contain at least 95 percent organically produced ingredients (excluding water and salt). Remaining product ingredients must consist of nonagricultural substances approved on the National List or nonorganically produced agricultural products that are not commercially available in organic form, also on the National List. Products may display the USDA Organic Seal and must display the certifying agent’s name.”You can’t add just any ingredients to a USDA Certified Organic product within that 5% – you may ONLY include ingredients on the Approved List.

  • Sagescript

    Its kind of a hard conversation to have; since there is no real definition of ‘natural’ it is simply a matter of opinion. In a sense, the whole reason for using cosmetics goes against nature since we are trying to prevent the natural breakdown of skin and tissue.

    • Dene62

      I agree with your comments about cosmetics going against nature, Cindy – in many cases they are used to actually defy nature, but I do believe in a scientific definition of natural – the one I provided in the article. If people wish to distort the meaning for the purpose of marketing cosmetics (as has happened with “organic”) then that is a different matter! :-)

  • http://www.facebook.com/joseph.colas Joseph Colas

    brilliant article, as always dene!  one of the things that have MOST irritated me about companies selling their ‘wholesome’ all natural goodies is when i see an ingredient, then (derived from >fill in the blank<).  it's so misleading for so many consumers who want to go 'natural', but yet i get a bit of schadenfreude….yes, i know, i'm evil.  

    • Dene62

      Thanks, Joseph – you’re very kind! :-) I had to laugh at one ingredient’s listing the other day – it was listed as “silk protein (from wheat)”. Can’t quite work that one out, myself! Genetically modified wheat, perhaps? lol

  • Paul

    Dene’s articles I find fascinating because of love for his profession and the beautiful way he stands at issues by never “hacking but questioning”. We learn a lot of him. Yes, we too in the natural cosmetics business and have toned down several of our claims both from because we didn’t know better and also we don’t wish to lie to our customers; we prefer to operate our business on good consciousness. I write too is because I admire Personal Care Truth or Scare’s website while Dene is one of my favorite writers re these matters. Thanks for keeping this information coming and also, for being on the right path.

    • Dene62

      Thank you Paul – you flatter me, but thank you! :-)

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  • http://www.lisalise.com/ Lise

    Love this!! I just asked my readers to define natural, and here it is! Yay Dene!

  • Stone

    My earlier comment cannot be shown. This is just a repost :)

    These days lots people believed products made from ‘plant derived’
    ingredients are ‘all natural’ since plants are natural. They have no
    idea how those ‘planted derived’ ingredients are gone through chemical
    modifications. Some of the products even called themselves
    ‘chemical-free’. Most of these ‘all natural’ products claimed what they
    claimed and are very expensive.The term ‘nature-identical’ is a
    joke, too. I frequently used essential oils to make skincare products
    and I purchased most of them from online stores. Some of the essential
    oils(e.g. frangipani, lotus, boronia, etc) are just too expensive for
    them to stock. They used ‘reconstitute essential oils’ which they said
    they are 96% ‘identical’, or ‘nature identical’ to those essential oils.
    That’s in fact only the aromatic constituents of the oils, not the
    medicinal properties, or the trace elements of the real oils. These ‘nature-identical’ oils are just fragrances, without any medicinal efficacy when applied to our skin.

    • Dene Godfrey

      “Nature identical” is not a joke – it is possible for some substances/mixtures to be nature-identical. Misuse of the term is another matter, however.

  • http://www.facebook.com/harald.jezek Harald Jezek

    In my opinion, the question of something being natural or not is more a philosophical question than anything else.
    Strictly speaking, there can’t be anything “unnatural” because nature is the collection of everything there is on our planet.
    Why should, let’s say a protein in our body that was synthezid by our internal laboratory using amino acids and many other chemicals be natural, while a chemical produced by a human (by the way, humans are products of nature) in an external laboratory be synthetic ?
    Or think about this way. Lat’s say we isolate a particular amino acid from milk. Obviously, we’ll consider it a natural product, right ? Now we synthesize the very same molecul in the lab. Does that make it something not natural just because the process changed ?
    Do you consider gasoline natural ? Most people probably don’t, but yet, it is a product that comes from nature.
    Conclusion: instead of talking about “natural” products in a very generic way we must explain what we mean when we say natural. Even then, there is still no guarantee that natural is better than “non-natural”. We know very well that the most potent toxins we know are coming directly from nature.
    So, again, as in so many areas, education is the key.