Is My Skincare Certified Organic or Not

I focus on ingredients that actually make a difference. I use organic and biodegradable ingredients where possible.

I like organic ingredients, and I definitely prefer them without pesticides.

So if I use organic and natural ingredients, why am I not certified with one of the big certification bodies, e.g. Soil Association or Ecocert, etc.?

This is a question that I get asked a lot, so here goes…

What is Organic Skincare?

“Organic” refers to a system of agriculture used to grow skincare ingredients.
This means a system of agriculture producing ingredients sustainably, without chemicals and synthetics, which are widely used in the industry today.

This allows ingredients to be tracked from where they grow to where they end up in your favourite skincare products.

What Does Organic Certification Mean?

There are a number of bodies that accredit or certify skincare — organisations like the Soil Association, COSMOS, Ecocert, USDA, and Natrue, etc.

To achieve certification with one of these means that products have to comply with the organisation’s specific requirements relating to ingredients and their sourcing.

The different bodies often have different rules around what counts as organic and what counts as natural.

At the time of writing, for a product to be certified as organic with the Soil Association / COSMOS, it has to be made with a minimum of 95% organic ingredients. There is often an accompanying “natural” certification — for example, COSMOS Natural — which does not need to contain any organic ingredients.

If you take Ecocert by comparison, to be able to use their organic badge, a product has to contain 95% organic ingredients, and for its natural and organic badge, a product has to be made from 50% organic ingredients.

The objective of any of the big certification bodies is to substantiate that a brand does what it says it does, and to improve consumer clarity.

And who could argue with that? Not me. I’m all for clarity and transparency — I have built my business around this.

So What’s the Catch?

To achieve certification with one of these larger bodies, there is a significant amount of red tape involved in what is essentially someone else checking that we do what we say we do — assessing our formulations, packaging, and suppliers, and then signing a contract.

As you might expect, there is a cost to this. All of the certification providers are businesses offering a service.

And not just a one-off cost to achieve compliance, but an annual retainer to maintain the right to use an organic badge.

For me, as a small business, that sort of significant cost and administrative burden is simply not an option — at least not right now.

My Organic Credentials

I go to great lengths to be transparent about my ingredients — where they come from, what ingredients are organic, and what are natural.

I manufacture all of my products in the UK and source all of our skincare ingredients in the UK, although they may originate from outside the country (e.g. shea butter from Africa).

I source these ingredients from reputable suppliers and ask for evidence to confirm that the organic products I purchase are indeed organic and natural.

I work very hard to build trust and transparency with my customers, which I feel is crucial, and I am open and honest when I talk to my customers about our products and ingredients.

Organic Plays a Big Role in Skincare

At a time when there are so many green claims about products that don’t stack up, I passionately believe that organic matters and plays a big role in our skincare.

Organic raw ingredients are many times more expensive than their regular counterparts.

But the main point is that when you look at the ingredients on the shop shelf, you realise that often only one single ingredient is organic — added as an afterthought right at the end of the list of ingredients, where the overall percentage is smallest.

Greenwashing at its best! Where the labelling suggests that a product is organic and/or natural, with only a small percentage of ingredients actually being so.

It’s up to you to check out those ingredients to see what’s really organic!