Organic Body Care,
What's The Big Deal?

Why is there so much interest these days in organic body care and organic skin care products? Are organic personal care products really all that big of a deal?

We are here to help you understand why it's important to use organic body care products such as lotions, toothpaste, deodorants, hair care products, and soaps.

You may ask, aren't natural products just as good as organic products? The answer to that question is, maybe. It depends on the manufacturer and their commitment to providing truly natural products.

Hopefully the following information will answer any questions you may have about certified organic vs natural and organic body care products.

We've all heard the saying, "you are what you eat". Well, your skin "eats" by absorption. The body metabolizes what it absorbs through the skin into the blood stream. Which is about 60 percent of what is applied to the skin.

Would you knowingly and intentionally give your children mind altering drugs, rat poison or cancer causing toxic chemicals to eat? Would you eat or drink them yourself or how about chemicals you know would cause your unborn child to have birth defects?

That's exactly what you are doing when you use personal care and skin care products on yourself and your children which contain toxic chemicals.

Your skin is the largest of your body's organs. So, what are you feeding your skin?

The Campaign For Safe Cosmetic Reports That....

    ...."Personal care products like shampoo, conditioner, after shave, lotion(s) and makeup are not regulated by the FDA or any other government agency. It is perfectly legal and very common for companies to use ingredients that are known or suspected to be carcinogens, mutagens or reproductive toxins in the their products. Consumers buy these products at drug stores, grocery stores, online or in salons, usually without questioning the product's safety."

The term "organic" has been used so loosely, with regard to these products, that it has become a widely held misconception that if the label has the word organic, or organics, on it the product is not only organic but also safe to use. This is NOT the case with the vast majority of products.

"Don't Natural and Organic Body Care
Mean The Same Thing, SAFE?"

Let's take a closer look at the cosmetics industry, the industry which brings us body care products, cosmetics, deodorants, toothpaste, mouthwash, hair products, soaps and skin care products. How do they define natural and organic and why is this important to know?

The cosmetics industry defines natural as:

    "ingredients derived from a natural substance"

We often see long chemical names which are followed by "derived from..…" Let's use, as an example, the process used to create cocamide DEA "derived from coconut oil" which requires the use of the cancer causing chemical diethanolamine (DEA). It's no longer natural coconut oil as it now contains the cancer causing chemical DEA.

When ingredients in a product are truly natural they will not have been altered by the use of extreme heat or toxic chemicals.

What you need to be looking for in these types of products are those who's remaining ingredients are certified organic. Products such as toothpaste, deodorants, powders, some hair care products and most cosmetics fall into this category.

The cosmetics industry defines organic as:

    "any compound containing carbon"

This is also the organic chemistry definition. Carbon is found in anything that ever lived.

Based on this definition, the toxic petrochemical preservative methyl paraben would be organic as it comes from crude oil which was formed by rotted vegetation.

This would put methyl paraben right up there with those other three highly recommended "organic body care products", motor oil, diesel fuel and gasoline.

The way most of the industry uses them, natural and organic really are pretty much the same thing. They may have some natural or organic ingredients but they will still most likely contain toxic chemicals.

The body care industry is flooding the market with products which use words like "botanicals", "organic", "organics" and "natural" in their name or at least somewhere on the label. Some of them even put "Certified by _ _ _ _" which isn't one of the official organic authorities.

Don't get us wrong, these products are often much better than conventional products. However, most of them still contain toxic chemicals.

There are some products which cannot be labeled as organic because they contain to high of a percentage of natural ingredients which cannot be certified organic.

Some ingredients in this category would be water, salts, minerals, clay, metal oxides and some plant extracts which come from plants that are not farm grown, they are wild harvested, and therefore cannot be certified organic.

When shopping for organic body care and skin care products, at your local store or online, it's next to impossible to find products that you can be sure are truly organic.

That's where we come in. One of our main reasons for this web site is to provide our visitors with access to the results of our research.

A major part of our research has been to find companies who, first and foremost, provide certified organic body care and personal care products. Secondly their natural products are produced without the use of toxic chemicals and with certified organic ingredients whenever possible.


Return from our Organic Body Care page to the Organic Living Home Page


Do not copy content from this web site. Plagiarism will be detected by Copyscape.
Share this page:
Want to share this with your site or blog visitors? Here's how...

Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?

  1. Click on the HTML link code below.
  2. Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.