ZOLD: Grow Your Business...Organically

Careful, the certifications and claims to be natural and organic are everywhere. Difficult to know who is being truthful and who is green washing! Below is a chart of the various certification bodies throughout the industry and their "level of expectation" to certify a brand organic.

As you will quickly learn; not all certifications and not all brands are created equal!!

It's already difficult enough to shop for beauty products responsibly, given how widely words like "organic" and "natural" are misused. To make things even more complicated, though, there are also tons of ecological certifications beauty products can get. They're designed to tell consumers that a product is more ecologically friendly, but not all certifications are the same, and some are much more strict than others. We've rounded up 10 common logos and broken down what each of them means.

So to get a simple and straightforward look at what the labels are telling you, we summarized the major players below:

The USDA Organic certification is the only standard the US government currently offers for cosmetics, although it's primarily a standard for food. To use the USDA seal, products must contain at least 95 percent organic ingredients.

This Australian certification would be very comparable to the USDA Certification.

This organic certification offers you:

• the recognition required for access to access export markets
• written guarantee of quality to the customer
• customer reassurance that goals and objectives are being met while being closely monitored
  

The Natural Products Association certification means:

• Any product labeled "natural" must be made with at least 95 percent natural ingredients — that is, from renewable resources found in nature. No petrochemicals are allowed.
• No parabens, SLS, chemical sunscreens, or phthalates.
• No animal testing.
• The packaging must be environmentally conscious and sustainable.
  

This German certification body's standard is showing up as more European natural brands pop up in US stores. BDIH's rules are myriad, but its general guidelines include:

• No animal testing.
• No synthetic dyes, fragrances, silicones, or paraffins.
• Only nature-identical preservatives.
• No genetic engineering, and optimum biodegradability.
• Fair trade and responsible sourcing are strongly encouraged.
  

NSF's Made With Organic standard is less than two years old, but it's the cosmetics industry's favored certification. "Made With Organic" and "Organic" aren't quite the same thing, though. To meet the NSF standard, products must have at least 70 percent organic content, but they don't have to be all the way natural.

The NaTrue label means that a product has been certified to contain only water, natural ingredients, and nature-derived ingredients.

The label has three grades: Natural Cosmetics, Natural Cosmetics with Organic Ingredients, and Organic Cosmetics.

Ecocert is primarily for food, but it is also useful for cosmetic and personal care products. Ecocert designates products as organic in the traditional sense — 95 percent of the ingredients must be of "natural origins," and fewer than five percent may be synthetic.

Cosmebio is a relatively new standard, created in 2002 with collaboration from European cosmetic laboratories. Its guidelines are very similar to Ecocert's, and you'll often see both logos on products. Cosmebio requires that products contain at least 95 percent natural ingredients, be without synthetic fragrances or colors, have no synthetic preservatives or petrochemical products, and be without genetically modified ingredients.

This Standard will certify products to two levels:

• organic
• made with organic
  

The "made with organic" will start and remain at a 70% minimum organic content with additional criteria for the remaining 30% of ingredients.

The "organic" label claim will start at 85%, then it will shift to 90% and to 95% two years later.