Organic cosmetics are in vogue in the wake of the economic miracle seen on organic food products in the past decade. (1) But regulations on organic cosmetics are still lacking. So how to choose?
The desire to use natural products that are compatible with health and the environment is increasingly widespread, in Italy as well as in Europe. Organic foods, detergents and household products, and so do cosmetics.
The cosmetics industry has been able to grasp the enormous potential of the appeal to ‘naturalness’ in products, offering an extraordinary variety of lines and products in recent years. With evidence of the use of plants or their extracts, and some ingredients from the animal kingdom such as beeswax and snail slime. The keywords are ‘natural’ and ‘bio’.
However, European regulations on organic production (2) limit their scope to agri-foodstuffs. With appropriate regulation of production requirements as well as certification and inspection systems. (3) So that every product bearing the European organic logo, the little green leaf surrounded by white stars, ensures that identical criteria are met.
In contrast, there is no binding standard, at the European or international level, to unambiguously define organic, or biological, cosmetics. More generally, there is a lack of rules on organic products other than food (e.g., home-care, textiles, green building). And on services, such as food and catering, laundry, etc. (4)
How then do you explain the presence of so many ‘organic cosmetics’ on the market? It is simple. In the absence of uniform rules, many operators have decided to draw up their own private specifications for the production of organic cosmetics. With the support of certification bodies, to check the consistency of requirements with objectives, supervise compliance, certify products.
So how to choose organic cosmetics? Faced with only one certainty-the absence of uniform rules on production and control criteria-we can only rely on the reliability of branding and certification and label claims:
– check on the packaging whether and to which private specification the operator refers, and perhaps gather information on relevant websites, (5)
– Evaluate how well the claims provided on the label meet individual priorities (e.g. vegan, cruelty-free, nickel-free, chemical additive-free),
– read the composition. (6) To avoid buying products that, beyond sometimes swaggering self-claims, contain hazardous substances such as parabens. Or otherwise non-natural raw materials (e.g., silicones, paraffins, benzoic acid, benzyl alcohol, petroleum derivatives, synthetic dyes).
Dario Dongo (article compiled with contributions from Luigi Tozzi)
Notes
(1) The organic food market in Italy grew by 15 percent in 2016 alone, according to Nomisma data. V. https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/progresso/biologico-italiano-record
(2) Reg. EU 834/07 and 889/08. See the article http://www.ilfattoalimentare.it/si-fa-presto-a-dire-bio-ma-cosa-significa.html
(3) Organic controls are coordinated in Italy by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry. Which delegates authority to the various accredited certification bodies (e.g., ICEA, CCPB, AIAB, BioAgriCert)
(4) The use of the terms ‘organic’ and ‘bio’, accordingly, is prohibited only in connection with foods that do not comply with reg. EU 834/07. And is vice versa allowed on other products and services
(5) Most specifications-such as Ecocert, the most widespread in Europe-prescribe the almost exclusive use of natural ingredients. Prevalence of plant raw materials from organic cultivation or wild harvest. Prohibition of the use of chemical preservatives as well as non-plant substances that are considered risky because they are allergenic, irritating, etc.
(6) The composition is prescribed on the label by reg. EC 1223/09 on cosmetic products, in Article 19.
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
