Organic Monitor: 'Natural is down to interpretation; certifying products will stop confusion'

The Head of Technical research delivered a presentation at the show in regards to a study the market researcher carried out on cosmetic products claiming to be natural or organic.

Here, Beerling explains how the definition of what is natural is down to interpretation, and that with a lack of regulation in this area, certifying your product will stop confusion for a consumer.

In her presentation, Beerling explained how products from skin care, sun care, hair care and personal grooming categories were examined and then ranked in terms of 'naturalness' according to their formulations from 1- 10.

“There are a lot of brands out there making claims to be natural or even organic but when you look at the ingredients list there are a lot of non-natural ingredients in there, we are trying to separate the marketing hype from the reality of the formulation​.”

Beerling mentions one brand Hipp, the largest organic food manufacturer in the world, now supplying a range of baby products as scoring quite low “as we found a number of ingredients in there that were suprising​.”  

Finally, Beerling points out that there are still formulation challenges in the organic and natural area for the industry such as stability, odour, availability of some ingredients and rising prices with bigger players entering the market.