‘Natural’ has become a huge buzzword in the beauty care industry over the past decade or so, as the green movement has taken hold, and consumers are becoming more savvy as to what they are putting on and in their bodies.

If you’re confused as to what it means for a beauty/personal care product to be labeled ‘natural,’ join the club. In large part, this confusion is due to the fact that the FDA, which regulates cosmetics, has no standard guidelines for the use of terms such as ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ in marketing lingo. The result is that companies use the terms at liberty, sometimes designating as natural a product that contains a single natural derivative and a load of chemical ingredients.

This sure doesn’t help a girl rest easy at night, so it’s nice to see Chief Marketing Officer of Burt’s Bees, Mike Indursky, lobbying Congress for a bill that would develop an industry standard for the term ‘natural’.

The company has joined forces with the National Products Association to create the Natural Standard, requiring that in order for products to be labeled ‘natural,’ they must be at least 95% natural, meaning they are free of parabens, synthetic preservatives, sulfates, animal products or anything suspected of potential human health risks.

It’s about time! Conveniently, this will help Burt’s Bees weed out some of their competition, as companies are bound to drop their natural labels should this bill go into effect.

Self interest aside, though, this will be a huge step forward in the beauty industry. As it stands now, it feels like a big looting raid on the part of many companies, grabbing customers where they can with their so-called natural products, laughing all the way to the bank because the police have their backs turned. I will be quite relieved when a standard is set into place, and consumers know what it is they’re up against. I like to be well-informed, as you all know.

If you want to sign up and support Burt’s Bees, check out this page on their website.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 7:00 am and is filed under Beauty News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.