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Organics - More Consumer
Confusion
A publication by Consumer Reports 2006, stated that yes, shopping organic
is better for you. "Wonderful," I thought, "more recognition for the
organic mission." But the article continued with two items to NOT buy
organic. Seafood being one, and cosmetics being the other.
Scratching my head, I wasn't sure whether I should write the editor and
introduce him to our products or burn the magazine in effigy.
A couple days
passed and I went back to reread the article. This time without the shock
factor. What I realized is that for the average consumer - that article is
going to prove invaluable in making correct decisions about organic
personal care products. I also knew the article was correct. Most, if not
all, the cosmetic products on today's market claiming to be organic -
simply aren't. I realized that they are telling consumers the exact
same thing that I am telling them - with one major difference - I can
actually provide legitimate organic products at the end of the day to give
them an option instead of leaving them high and dry to continue using
toxic products.
Organic & Natural Defined
The industry's definition of
organic: "Any compound containing carbon."
ONEgroup definition of organic: "Grown, cultivated and stored
without the use of chemicals, herbicides, pesticides, fumigants and other
toxins.
The
industry's definition of natural: "Any ingredient derived from a
natural substance."
ONEgroup definition of natural: "Existing in, or formed by
nature; not artificial."
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The
ONEgroup 3
Levels of Organic Certification
miessence®Certified Organics. These
are certified by the ACO (Australian Certified Organics) and the USDA
(United States Department of Agriculture). They are certified to food
grade standards because they contain at least 95% agricultural
certified ingredients.
They do NOT contain any synthetic
ingredients, artificial fragrances, colors, textures or fillers.
miessence®Organics. These are made
with organics and/or combined with *mineral
products. They contain at least 70% organic agricultural
ingredients. These are certified by the BFA (Biological Farmers of
Australia). They do NOT contain any synthetic ingredients, artificial
fragrances, colors, textures or fillers.
*
Mineral products come from the earth. For example, ONEgroup's miessence®
masks are created from rich mineral basins sourced and mined from lush
regions in Australia. Minerals cannot be grown or cultivated - they
naturally occur; therefore, they cannot be certified. Bicarb soda, used
in our toothpastes, is another example - and purified water...
also an organic source from Mother Nature that cannot be certified, as
it too occurs naturally.
miessence® Uncertified Organics.
These products bear no logo of certification. The two miessence®
Shampoos, the miessence® Sunflower Body Wash, and the miessence® Herbal
Conditioner. They each carry one single ingredient that prevents an
organic certification.
They do NOT contain any harmful synthetic
ingredients, artificial fragrances, colors, textures or fillers.
Shampoos & Body Wash:
Cocoa-Polyglucose. Cocoa-polyglucose
is of excellent dermatological
compatibility. It is free from ethylene oxide. It is free from
preservatives. It does not have a negative environmental impact as it
is made from completely renewable vegetable sources.
* Good news is that our supplier is considering certification! :-)
Herbal
Conditioner:
Sorbitan olivate. Sorbitan olivate is an
oil derived emulsifier from the olive
plant.
* Good news is that our
Italian supplier says that the grove is
actually organic. He has never used any pesticides or herbicides on
this very old plantation. They just have never certified.
Certification is something he is looking into for the future! :-)
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Why Choose Organics?
Quite simply,
certified organic is your guarantee of ONEgroup's purity of product and
integrity of company.
We, at
ONEgroup, are proud that our product range bears the seal of approval by
Australia's leading organic certifier, the Biological Farmers of
Australia. The BFA sets and maintains stringent quality standards that
either comply with or exceed international requirements.
To
obtain organic certification for a product, a minimum of 95% of all
ingredients of agricultural origin must be certified organic. The
remaining 5% of ingredients however are also bound by strict guidelines.
They are, for example, not permitted to be synthetic chemicals or
artificially processed ingredients.
The benefits
of certified organic products and processes:
- Independent
third-party guarantee of quality, and purity of ingredients.
- Safe, clean and
potent plant extracts of high vitality.
- Sustainable
agriculture that respects, supports and nurtures the complete
ecology and energy of our planet.
- Authenticity and
integrity of organic and natural claims.
- Prevention of damage
to the environment and humans by the poisonous
chemicals used in conventional agriculture.
While 'natural' and
'organic' claims abound, the only way you can be sure is by using a fully
certified organic range of products.
Many
may claim to use organic ingredients, but none have achieved third party
independent certification.
ONEgroup is the creator of
the world's first range of Internationally Certified Organic skin, hair,
body, oral, cosmetics and nutritional products.
The
desire to produce a range that was previously considered "impossible", and
the pioneering willingness to leap into uncharted territories and
revolutionize, has resulted in the world's first certified organic skin,
hair and personal care.
Our
philosophy of using only 100% natural and organic ingredients
stems from our belief in the body's innate intelligence, which responds
to, and resonates in harmony with nature.
Our aim is to assist your body in restoring harmony and balance to your
skin. Only products that are completely free of all impurities and
synthetics can help you achieve this aim.
Our
absolutely pure and unique skin care preparations truly support and
encourage a healthy, balanced skin that glows with vitality.
We
thank you for your interest in ONEgroup, and warmly invite you to
continue your journey towards health and beauty with us.
Narelle Chenery
B. App. Sci.
Product Formulator, Founder ONEgroup
Have you
ever counted how many cosmetics or personal care products you use in a
day? Chances are it's nearly 10. And chances are good that they include
shampoo, toothpaste, soap, deodorant, hair conditioner, lip balm,
sunscreen, body lotion, shaving products if you're a man, and cosmetics if
you are a woman. And what about your children? On any given day you might
rub, spray, or pour some combination of sunscreen, diaper cream, shampoo,
lotion, and maybe even insect repellant on their skin.
Most people
use these products without a second thought, and believe that the
government must certainly be policing the safety of the mixtures in these
myriad containers. But they are wrong about this. The government does
NOT
require health studies or pre-market testing for these products before
they are sold. And as people apply an average of 126 unique ingredients on
their skin daily, these chemicals, whether they seep through the skin,
rinse down the drain, or flush down the toilet in human excretions, are
causing concerns for human health, and for the impacts they may have to
wildlife, rivers and streams.
Why personal care products?
At first blush it may seem that mascara and shaving cream have little
relevance to the broader world of environmental health. Think again. In
August 2005, when scientists published a study finding a relationship
between plasticizers called phthalates and feminization of U.S. male
babies, they named fragrance as a possible culprit. When
estrogenic industrial chemicals called parabens were found in human
breast tumor tissue earlier this year, researchers questioned if
deodorant was the source. And when studies show, again and again, that
hormone systems in wildlife are thrown in disarray by common
water pollutants, once again the list of culprits include personal care
products, rinsing down drains and into rivers.
No safety testing.
According to the agency that regulates cosmetics, the FDA's Office of
Cosmetics and Colors, "...a cosmetic manufacturer may use almost any
raw material as a cosmetic ingredient and market the product without an
approval from FDA" (FDA 1995). The industry's self-policing safety
panel falls far short of compensating for the lack of government
oversight. An EWG analysis found that in its 30-year history, the
industry's self-policing safety panel has reviewed the safety of just 11
percent of the 10,500 ingredients used in personal care products. FDA does
no systematic reviews of safety. And collectively, the ingredients in
personal care products account for one of every seven of the 75,000
chemicals industries have registered for commercial use with the
Environmental Protection Agency.
Eighty-nine (89) percent of the 10,500 ingredients FDA has determined are
used in personal care products have not been evaluated for safety by the
CIR, the FDA, or any other publicly accountable institution.
While some companies make products that are
safe to eat, other companies choose to use known human carcinogens or
developmental toxins like coal tar and lead.
When risky chemicals
are used in cosmetics, the stakes are high. These are not trace
contaminants like those found at part-per-million or even part-per-billion
levels in food and water. These are the base ingredients of the product,
just as flour is an ingredient in bread.
acetate. These chemicals are found in
percent levels in personal care products, nearly all easily penetrate the
skin, and some we ingest directly from our lips or hands.
Are our products harming
our health? To learn about the safety of ingredients in
personal care products, the Environmental Working Group compiled an
electronic database of ingredient labels for 14,100 name-brand products
and cross-linked it with 37 toxicity or regulatory databases.
Cosmetic ingredients do not sit
tight of the surface of the skin — they are designed to penetrate, and
they do. Scientists have found many common cosmetic ingredient in human
tissues, including industrial plasticizers called phthalates in urine,
preservatives called parabens in breast tumor tissue, and persistent
fragrance components like musk xylene in human fat. Do the levels at which
they are found pose risks? For the most part, those studies have not been
done. But a recent study showing feminization of human male babies in the
U.S. linked to a common fragrance component (diethyl phthalate) joins a
small but growing number of studies that serve as scientific red flags
when it comes to the safety of ingredients in personal care products.
Are our products affecting
wildlife, rivers and streams? When the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention sought to understand human exposures to industrial
plasticizers called phthalates, they passed up food, water, air, or human
blood testing, and targeted urine instead. When ingredients in personal
care products seep through human skin into our bodies, many end up in
human excretions. Other ingredients get washed down the drain when we wash
our hair and bodies in the shower, or clean a day's makeup and lotion off
our faces at the end of the day.
A growing number of studies in
the field of testing that targets what are known as "PPCPs" —
pharmaceuticals and personal care products — finds our personal care
product ingredients in rivers and streams across the country. And some
ingredients have been linked to impacts in wildlife - those that target
the hormone system, for example, that have been linked to feminization of
fish and other aquatic life.
Personal care products are chock
full of chemicals that act like estrogen and that raise concerns with
respect to wildlife. Examples? Fifty-seven percent of all products contain paraben preservatives, nearly two percent contain surfactants called
alkylphenols and just over two percent contain estrogenic sunscreen
ingredients, according to EWG's 2004 product assessment.
EWG's research shows that 50
percent of all products on the market contain added "fragrance," complex
mixtures of chemicals, some persistent, some neurotoxic, and some newly
found to harm wildlife. Researchers at Stanford University published work
in 2004 showing that mussels lost their ability to clear their bodies of
poisons when exposed to parts-per-billion levels of common fragrance musks.
When the ingredients in our
products are harming wildlife, what must be their impact to us? That is a
question that remains unanswered by an industry with near complete
discretion over product safety, making slow progress in screening
ingredients for safety.
When the alarm rings she
slowly gets out of bed, turns on the shower and under the steady stream of
water, she gently scrubs her body with AMMONIA, FORMALDEHYDE
and PHENOL.
Next she shampoos her hair with DEA and
SODIUM LAURYL SULPHATE. Rinsing the shampoo, she applies a good amount
of mutagenic DEA and PROPYLENE GLYCOL and lets it penetrate
while she pops the top on the shaving cream and shaves her legs with A-PINENE.
The shower
finished, she towel dries and spreads on an even coat of contaminant,
POLYCYCLIC AROMATIC HYDROCARBONS (PHAs) and a dusting of an
ASBESTOS LIKE SUBSTANCE (TALC) over her skin. She sprays the scented ALUMINIUM under her arms, brushes her teeth with FD&C BLUE, SODIUM LAURYL SULFATE, SACCHARIN and FLUORIDE. Then
she rinses and gargles with ETHANOL and PHENOL ALCOHOL. She
combs setting gel through her hair then blows it dry and sprays it with POLYVINYL PYRROLIDINE (PVP).
Sitting at her vanity,
she carefully applies a thin film of PHENOL CARBOLIC ACID, DIOXIN
and PROPYLENE GLYCOL over her face to reduce the fine lines.
Today, she’ll
wear foundation and a little FD&C RED#3. And better add some
MERCURY on the eyes for today is a special meeting and a little Toxic
and Mutagenic ASCORBYL PALMITATE to line her lids and a stroke of BACTERIA and POLYVINYL PYRROLIDE (PVP) to her lashes.
What
are you feeding YOUR skin?
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