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 Organic Lobby Fears Loophole For Body Care Products

Environmental News Service

WASHINGTON, DC, March 26, 2003 (ENS) -The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) is warning that a loophole in the current organic food standards could allow body care companies to promote nonorganic products as organic.

The OCA said the loophole consists of counting the water of "organic hydrosol" as "organic".

Organic hydrosol, OCA officials explain, is "basically the copious amounts of leftover water" after an organic botanical, such as flowers, is put through a steam distillation process to produce oil.

Although hydrosol contains a substantial amount of non-agricultural water, OCA believes this water is counted "organic" by some body care companies. This inflates the weight of organic ingredients in their products to make the claim that they use "70 percent Certified Organic Ingredients."

OCA's Executive Director Ronnie Cummins believes the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Program, which oversees organic labeling, should step in to remedy the possible loophole.

If it is not addressed, Cummins said, "we are likely to see more and more companies replace the water in their products with hydrosol."

Hydrosols did not exist as an ingredient in body care formulations until companies started to use them to make fraudulent inflated organic claims, according to OCA.

"By using hydrosol, pseudo-natural body care companies claim they use 70 percent certified organic ingredients even though they are using mostly synthetic and non-organic ingredients mixed with what is basically flavored water," Cummins explained.

"To ensure consumers are getting organic ingredients when the label says so, companies should be compelled to only count the percentage of real non-water ingredients," he said.

The OCA contends that organic body care standards should mirror organic food standards. These set a mandatory 70 percent minimum weight of non water/non salt agricultural organic content in a product for a "Made with Organic" label claim to be made on the front panel.

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