What "Natural" Means at Lisa's Natural Herbal Creations

Understanding "Natural"

The term "Natural" has been used in the cosmetics and skincare industry for about 30 years.  In case you did not know, the term "natural" has no legal definition or official regulation in the cosmetics industry.  I recently attended a cosmetic skincare formulation class, and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to demystify such a broad term as natural and help others understand why there can be so much controversy over a product that is labeled as such, mine included.  

The Natural Spectrum

Here is where the breakdown of what I learned begins, and how I will explain what "natural" means.  There are three main categories that "natural" can fall into.  

• Purely Natural or 100% Natural - This means harvested right from nature and only a degree or small amount of processing, with no change to the chemical composition of the plant.
  • Examples: cold-pressed carrier oils and cold-expression essential oils, expeller-pressed oils.

•   Naturally Derived: - This means the ingredients have been harvested from nature, but they have undergone a degree of chemical or physical processing to make the finished product or ingredient.
  • This category includes CO2-processed oil, butters & essential oils, steam-distilled essential oils, emulsifiers, surfactants, and some preservatives.  

Many people would argue the point that their soap is 100% natural (me included, until I learned this) because they use oils and butters that are minimally or cold, expeller pressed but the fact is once the lye enter the picture (even if they make their own ley from ashed) KOH (potassium hydroxide) or NAOH (sodium hydroxide) it changes the chemical composition of each of the oils and butters in the soap.  If that chemical change didn't occur, we wouldn't get soap in the end.

• Nature Identical - This means that the ingredients are created in a laboratory.  I used to think lab-created ingredients were bad until I was informed otherwise and learned that it is not cost-effective or sustainable to grow, harvest, and process certain ingredients. Laboratories can produce the same ingredient under controlled conditions, without pests, and the end product is chemically identical.  
  • Some ingredients that can be in this category are citric acid, allantoin, salicylic acid, hyaluronic acid, Vitamin E(tocopherol), potassium sorbate, and some essential oils.

My goal as a business owner and maker is to educate myself, improve my business and products while being transparent with my customers and sharing what I've learned with them. I use the word natural in my business (It's in my business name and on many of my soaps) and will continue to do so with more detail in the future using these three categories: Purely Natural, 100% Natural, Naturally Derived, and Nature Identical.

Questions for you:

1. Does any of the above information change how you feel about natural bath and body products?
2. Does it make you want to learn more about ingredient lists and what the difference is between different names?
3. Did you find this post informative/educational?

I welcome your opinions and comments.  If you enjoyed this post, you are most welcome to sign up for our email list for more blog posts, new product alerts, and sales.

Stay curious and see you in the next post!

Lisa