Organic cosmetics to be certified by Organic Trust in Ireland

In a market leading move, the Organic Trust recently announced that it will soon be in a position to certify cosmetics and beauty products as organic.

This would make the Organic Trust, along with the UK�s Soil Association, the only certification body in Britain or Ireland with cosmetics and beauty products on their books.

The area of certifying organic cosmetics is perhaps the most contentious of all the possible areas. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, and simply, you can�t or at least shouldn�t, eat cosmetics.

But assuming that people want similar standards for cosmetics they put onto their body as for the foods they put into them, the area is still fraught with controversy.

Lovelula.com specialises in on line retailing of natural and certified organic cosmetics and body care products. Lula herself firstly pointed out that that the general labelling rules are weaker for cosmetics than for other products:

�It is currently legal for a product to be labelled organic if this word is part of its brand name even if it contains no organic ingredients whatsoever. Additionally these products can contain any number of chemical ingredients commonly used in conventional cosmetic products�.

Cosmetics often claim to have organic ingredients in them, or to have other, similar standards.

Lula�s company adheres to the BDIH industry standard as a baseline, while also carrying Soil Association approved products. BDIH is a high standard, but it is an internal industry standard with no third party external validation. For this reason, the Soil Association�s certification is considered stronger. It offers both the ingredients list limitations and the external, independent validation of products.

The Soil Association themselves point to some technical limitations in the area:

�Organic beauty products that contain oils and oil-based ingredients such as balms and body butters can be made using 100% organic ingredients and do not require the addition of preservatives. Sometimes they may use a mild antioxidant such as tocopherol or ascorbic acid which are permitted under organic food standards (both the EU regulation and Soil Association standards) and naturally derived.

However, products that contain water, and water and oil based ingredients such as creams, lotions and shampoos need to have some kind of preservative system so that they are safe to use. In addition they may need an emulsifier which mixes together the oil and water ingredients and stops them separating.�

They go on to suggest that organic preservatives are used, and, if none are suitable, then �a preservative that meets strict toxicological and biodegradibility requirements can be used�. The same holds for the emulsifiers.

The main problem, however, is scale and range: very few products are certified as of yet. Companies like Balm Balm, Spiezia and Pai are certified by the Soil Association, but they are conspicuous in their isolation.

In this context, the move by the Organic Trust is very much a leading edge development, putting them to the forefront of the organic certification sector globally.

I asked Colin Keogh, processing inspector with the Organic Trust, about �organic� cosmetics� bad name globally, compared to organic food:

�The Organic Trust places the credibility of the organic sector above all other considerations. In the rush to fill this vacuum for organically certified health and beauty products, we believe that some undeveloped standards have emerged in the world arena. The Organic Trust were adamant that we would not follow suit. Our Standard has emerged from a painstaking examination of many of the comparable organic and natural standards available in the worldwide market, canvassing the opinion of current producers and where necessary commissioning the appropriate experts in the field to ensure we have the most relevant and workable standards that still hold the credibility of being considered �Organic� in the real sense of the word�.

This includes carrying out individual ingredient and process analyses to assess their suitability for inclusion in the Standard.

Colin also suggested that they were still �at the crossing the T�s and dotting the i�s� stage: their stakeholder panel meets in July. Shortly after this, the list of approved ingredients will be made available.

And after this, we should start to see some trustworthy organic cosmetics, produced and certified in Ireland, on our shelves.