Whilst a genuine Organic product is always Natural, a Natural product is not always Organic.
Natural is a word that implies that a product is made with ingredients found only in nature, it really should be regarded as a Greenwashing term.
The term Natural can relate to a product containing many ingredients from natural resources and manufactured using natural processes, some of the ingredients may include water, minerals, and physically processed ingredients such as plant extracts and vegetable oils which do not count as organic.
Skincare that contains any ‘Fragrances’, ‘Perfumes’, or synthetic chemicals cannot be Natural or Organic.
Ideally the product should contain organic ingredients
Organic should mean ingredients from a naturally sourced farm grown without any man made or toxic chemicals.
Consumers are lead to believe that products with the words ‘Natural’ and ‘Organic’ contain no toxic chemicals or artificial fragrances, however, due to the lack of regulation in the beauty industry, manufacturers can still label their products this way even if the product does contain processed, toxic and chemically enhanced ingredients.
UK legislation permits brands to label skincare ‘Natural’ when it contains less than 1% of a ‘Natural’ ingredient.
Greenwashing
‘Nature Inspired’, ‘From Nature’, ‘Natural’, and ‘Organic’ are much hyped words and are Greenwashing which unfortunately is very common in the marketing of skincare.
Claiming a product is Natural when containing a high percentage of synthetic ingredients makes shopping for green products problematic.
Another Greenwashing term “Wild Harvested”, such a product may contain natural ingredients, however if these ingredients are not organically farmed they should not be termed as organic.
Certified Organic
Are raw materials that
have been certified organic by numerous regulatory bodies who set a large number of strict production rules and regulations for organic certification.
A transparent skin care brand will always mention what percentages of its ingredients are Organic.