Ever wonder what all those seals on health store shampoos and lotions really mean? In honour of national organic week, I offer up a guide to five organic bodycare seals. And news flash, some changes have just hit the USDA organic seal. This one’s long considered tops for bodycare since, unlike other seals, it’s only designed for use on food, so a USDA organic lotion has to meet the same standards as a USDA organic salad dressing.  It’s got to be 95% or more organic to use the seal and only synthetics approved in organic food can be used in that lotion. That makes it pretty impossible for stuff like shampoo or lipstick that contain non-food ingredients to meet, which is why companies use some of the other seals listed here.

But as I mention in the column, the corporate lobby (let’s call them Big Organics), has been trying to sneak in iffy synthetics under the USDA Organic label for eons now and they’ve just changed the rules to make it easier to do so. Yes, they still allow way fewer synths than standards designed especially for cosmetics like Ecocert, Natrue or, one I didn’t have room for, NSF (which requires that a personal care product be 70% or more organic), however, this means we’ve got to be extra vigilant about making sure more dodgy ingredients don’t sneak their way in.  For more info, check out this interesting take.  And for my full column on all the above and more, read on here.

 

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