Vol 4 Issue 12, 3 April 2003

USA: ORGANIC STANDARDS THREATENED BY HYDROSOL SCHEME

Organic Consumers Association The Organic Consumers Association's (OCA) new "Coming Clean" campaign to ensure rigorous standards for "organic" body care has revealed that, under pressure from various cosmetic interests, a devastating loophole in the current organic food standards could be opened by the Organic Trade Association (OTA) and the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB). The NOSB directly advises the USDA's National Organic Program (NOP).

The loophole consists of counting as "organic" the water of an obscure ingredient known as "organic hydrosol", which is basically the copious amounts of left-over water after an organic botanical such as flowers is put through a steam distillation process and essential oil is produced and collected.

Even though hydrosol contains a substantial amount of non-agricultural water, this water is counted "organic" by some body care companies to drastically inflate the weight of organic ingredients in their products to make the claim that they use "70 percent Certified Organic Ingredients." A fundamental criteria of the NOP regulations is that only the non-water weight of a product is counted when determining organic content, and a hydrosol is basically a complicated way of making tea. For example, a soup company cannot replace their regular water in a conventional vegetable soup product with "organic tea" and then claim the soup is "70 percent Organic" without organically sourcing any of the actual real non-water vegetable ingredients.

However, unethical soup companies, like unethical body care companies are now doing, may soon be utilizing "Organic Hydrosol" in place of water to do just that. "Unless the USDA's NOP steps in, we are likely to see more and more companies replace the water in their products with Hydrosol," says Ronnie Cummins, Executive Director of the 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.

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." The body care companies in question falsely claim that "organic" floral waters are somehow key functional components of their products. However, hydrosols did not exist as an ingredient in body care formulations until companies started to use them to make fraudulent inflated organic claims. Not only is the presence of these hydrosols largely insignificant and inconsequential, their actual organic content is extremely minimal since they are almost completely water.

Nonetheless, various so-called "natural" body care manufacturers are using these waters to green-wash their products and make organic label claims, even though their formulations are in fact largely composed of the same conventional synthetic cleansers, conditioners and preservatives found in mainstream products. On the front panels of their products, these companies assert "50 or 70 percent organic ingredients" to mislead consumers into thinking that they are buying mostly organic products when they assuredly are not. The OCA argues that organic body care standards should mirror organic food standards, which stipulate 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.

This means that: -- Certified organic agricultural feed-stocks are utilized exclusively, versus petroleum or conventional vegetable feed-stocks, in the manufacture of the key basic cleansing and conditioning ingredients. -- Manufacture of such ingredients is ecological. -- The toxicity of each ingredient is minimal. -- Non-agricultural water is not counted in any shape or form as contributing to organic content.

The OCA is a grassroots nonprofit organization concerned with food safety, organic farming, sustainable agricultural, fair trade and genetic engineering.  Contact: Ronnie Cummins, 218-226-4164 or Adam Eidinger, 202-744-2671; both for the Organic Consumers Association's (OCA)