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What's in YOUR Body Care Products?
Follow-Up Tests of Leading Personal Care and Household Cleaning Brands Reveal Improvements in Levels of Carcinogenic 1,4-dioxane
But New Study Indicates Some Products Mislabeled as "Natural" Should Have Cancer Warning
3/6/2009 ANAHEIM, CA - Today, a new follow-up study was released that assesses levels of the petrochemical carcinogen 1,4-dioxane in leading conventional as well as "natural" and "organic" brands of personal care and household cleaning products. The results indicate significant improvement for 23 products from sixteen major brands that had formerly been found to contain potentially dangerous levels of the contaminant 1,4-dioxane in a similar study held in March of 2008.
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Read the Full Press Release...
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Download the Press Release (Word doc)
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Read the results of the follow-up testing (PDF)
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1,4-dioxane Fact Sheet
Campaigning for Organic Integrity in Bodycare Products
The Organic Consumers Association's "Coming Clean Campaign" has been working to clean up the 'natural' and 'organic' personal care industry for the past five years. Unlike organic foods, many personal care products are falsely labeled as "organic".
OCA's Coming Clean Campaign is focused on cleaning up the organic personal care industry by ridding of fraudulent labeling that is misleading consumers. The OCA believes that organic bodycare standards should mirror organic food standard.
This means that:
Certified organic agricultural feedstocks are utilized in the manufacture
of the key basic cleansing and conditioning ingredients, versus petroleum
or conventional feedstocks. - 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.
Over 600 organic businesses have signed on to support this campaign (see a list of supporting businesses here or sign your business on to be a supporter here).
If you are a personal care producer or retailer and would like to support OCA's Coming Clean Campaign, click here.
The word "organic" is not properly regulated on personal care products (example: toothpaste, shampoo, lotion, etc.) as it is on food products, unless the product is certified by the USDA National Organic Program.
Due to this lax regulation, many personal care products have the word "organic" in their brand name or otherwise on their product label, but unless they are USDA certified, the main cleansing ingredients and preservatives are usually made with synthetic and petrochemical compounds.
This is why the Organic Consumers Association recommends consumers look for the USDA organic seal on personal care products that claim to be organic. Although there are multiple "organic" standards all around the world, each with its own varying criteria, the USDA Organic Standards are the "gold standard" for personal care products.
If you are looking to purchase a product that is totally organic, look for the USDA organic seal. If it doesn't have the seal, read the ingredient label to find out how many ingredients are truly organic and how many are synthetic.
Identifying Toxic Contamination in Personal Care Products
Stop Bogus "Organic" Misbranding or Certification
To help remove some of this misleading organic labeling from the market, in late March 2008, the OCA and Dr. Bronner's filed Cease and Desist Letters to many of the bogus "organic" brands who utilize conventional and/or petrochemical material instead of organic material in making their main cleansing ingredients, some of whom even tested positive for the carcinogen 1,4-Dioxane in this study. Read the press release here and the Cease and Desist letter here.
Many
companies misbrand "Organics" on their labels but consumers
should look for products certified under the USDA (see recommended list here),
because there are other weak so-called "organic" standards that
a product can become "certified" under, which do not allow ethoxylation
and 1,4-Dioxane, but allow hydrogenation and sulfation of conventional, not
organic material, to make cleansing ingredients preserved with synthetic
preservatives.
Two of these weak standards consumers should look out for are the Ecocert and OASIS standards; Ecocert actually allows certain petrochemicals in cleansing ingredients.
Surveys clearly indicate that when a product labels itself as "Organic" or is sold by a company with the word "Organic" in its brand name, consumers are willing to pay extra, because they believe that product does not contain cleansing ingredients made with conventional and/or petrochemical material, that may be contaminated with carcinogenic compounds like 1,4-Dioxane.
