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FAKE ''ORGANIC'' BODYCARE CARE COMPANIES GO TO COURT

Apr 28, 2008

ALERT UPDATE: from the Organic Consumers Association

FAKE "ORGANIC" BODYCARE CARE COMPANIES GO TO COURT

The family owned Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court today against numerous personal care brands to force them to stop making misleading organic labeling claims. Dr. Bronner's and the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) had previously warned offending brands that they faced litigation unless they committed to either drop their organic claims or reformulate away from main ingredients made from conventional agricultural and/or petrochemical material without any certified organic material.


Coming Clean: Campaigning for Organic Integrity in Bodycare Products
The word "organic" is not properly regulated on personal care products (example: toothpaste, shampoo, lotion, etc.) as it is on food products, unless the product is certified by the USDA National Organic Program.

Due to this lax regulation, many personal care products have the word "organic" in their brand name or otherwise on their product label, but unless they are USDA certified, the main cleansing ingredients in particular are usually made with conventional not agricultural material, combined with petrochemical compounds.

Sadly, the commonly used carcinogencic petrochemical Ethylene Oxide actually generates the carcinogenic contaminant 1,4-Dioxane in many of these products.

Tips: Identifying Toxic Contaminantion In Personal Care Products
A new study commissioned by the Organic Consumers Association found the carcinogen 1,4-Dioxane in a large number of leading personal care products misbranded as organic, including Giovanni, Natures Gate and JASON (see a full list of products and study results here and read our 1,4-Dioxane study press release here.

Learn more about 1,4-Dioxane by reading our fact sheet here, and for a list of ingredients to look out for on a product label that will indicate the likely presence of 1,4-Dioxane, click here.

Consumer advocate David Steinman (author of the Safe Shopper?’s Bible) performed the study with an independent laboratory, and has written an excellent letter to consumers and given a very clear video conference along with OCA Executive Director Ronnie Cummins. Major press has also covered the situation, including the LA Times, Washington Post and NBC News in Austin.

Alert: Stop Bogus "Organic" Misbranding or Certification
To help remove some of this misleading organic labeling from the market, in late March 2008, the OCA and Dr.Bronner's filed Cease and Desist Letters to many of the bogus "organic" brands who utilize conventional and/or petrochemical material instead of organic material in making their main cleansing ingredients, some of whom even tested positive for the carcinogen 1,4-Dioxane in this study. Read the press release here and the Cease and Desist letter here.

Many of these companies misbrand ?“Organics?” on their labels but consumers should look for products certified under the USDA [place link to our recommended products page here], because there are other weak so-called ?“organic?” standards that a product can become "certified" under, which do not allow ethoxylation and 1,4-Dioxane, but allow hydrogenation and sulfation of conventional, not organic material, to make cleansing ingredients preserved with synthetic preservatives.

Two of these weak standards consumers should look out for are the Ecocert and OASIS standards; Ecocert actually allows certain petrochemicals in cleansing ingredients. Learn more here.

Surveys clearly indicate that when a product labels itself as "Organic" or is sold by a company with the word "Organic" in its brand name, consumers are willing to pay extra, because they believe that product does not contain cleansing ingredients made with conventional and/or petrochemical material, that may be contaminated with carcinogenic compounds like 1,4-Dioxane. See survey results here.

Based on this, the OCA and Dr.Bronner's have filed Cease and Desist letters with companies currently misleadingly labeling their products as "organic" (see press release here). The OCA targeted "organic" companies that chose not to announce plans to reformulate their products are now going to court (see press release).


OCA's Coming Clean Campaign is focused on cleaning up the organic personal care industry by ridding of fraudulent labeling that is misleading consumers. Over 400 organic businesses have signed on to support this campaign.