How often have you been convinced to purchase a product with the word “organic” on the label? Whould it suprise you to learn that this product may not have a single certified organic ingredient in it? Organic ingredients are plant oils or extracts, or other unadulterated agricultural products.

Some manufacturers use marketing ploys such as “made with 100% organic botanicals,” meaning that a few of the individual ingredients are “100% organic“…but the others could be synthetic. They may also advertise organic ingredients on the front of the package yet these ingredients are listed last. The last ingredients listed on a product label are used the least in these products.

For example a new product line of shampoos and conditioners has a great sounding organic name: Organix. They advertise organic ingredients on the front of the bottles. The Nourishing Coconut Milk Shampoo advertises an exclusive blend of organic coconut milk, ultra whipped egg white proteins and weightless coconut oils. Turn the bottle over and the ingredients I just mentioned are some of the last ones on the ingredient list after all of the chemical ones we can’t pronounce. That means that they are definitely in there however very, very, small amounts that will never make difference in your hair!

Still some other manufacturers advertise things like “no sodium lauryl sulfate” or mention some other chemicals to give the impression that they don’t use any chemicals. They just don’t use that particular chemical. “Made with no harmful chemicals”? What is considered harmful? They are still using chemicals, just not harmful ones?

So beware of this very common marketing technique: listing certified organic ingredients on a label does not necessarily make a product organic or even remotely healthy for you.

If you are concerned about ingredients in your beauty products or would like to learn about chemical ingredients found in these products visit  The environmental working group’s Skin Deep cosmetic safety database. Just type in the ingredient in question in the search bar, and voila! Up comes chemical descriptions, a list of products with this ingredient and even a hazard score. 0-2: low hazard, 3-6 moderate, and 7-10 high hazard. Search beauty products with hazard score zero, in addition to those with high hazard scores-products you may want to pass on.

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