Natrue and Natural Products Association Join Forces

European certifier of ‘natural’ cosmetics Natrue has signed a mutual recognition agreement with the Natural Products Association (NPA) in the US, meaning that products complying with the standards of either of these bodies will not have to undergo the full certification process again when they wish to market their products across the Atlantic. Natrue also signed an equivalency agreement with Quality Assurance International (QAI) certifiers earlier in the year.

I am not Natrue’s biggest fan. Their standards are abysmally weak
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Organic Cosmetic Confusion

The boom in organic certification schemes is counterproductive, confusing for consumers and draws attention away from producers of genuinely certified organic products, who are lost amongst larger competitors that dupe consumers with weak certification labels and false claims. “Certification wars” are well underway and on Cosmeticsdesign-europe.com  you can see a video of Amarjit Sahota, director of organic market research organisation, Organic Monitor, discuss the issues involved. Sahota has called for the possibility of a global standard becoming a reality, but I am far from convinced unless the standards are stringent, official and enforced.

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Scientist Links Chemical Cocktails to Male Infertility and Birth Defects

Professor Richard Sharpe of the Medical Research Council highlighted in a report commissioned by CHEM Trust published last week that chemicals in consumer products may contribute to human male reproductive disorders that manifest at birth (cryptorchidism – undescended testes, hypospadias –where the opening of the urethra is abnormally positioned somewhere along the underside of the penis, between the base and just below the tip), or in young adulthood (impaired semen quality or testicular germ cell tumours). Such disorders are collectively referred to as Testicular Dysgenesis Syndrome, a phrase coined by Professor Niels E Skakkebaek MD.

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Report Reveals Greenwashing is Rife

A report published by North American environmental marketing firm TerraChoice Environmental Marketing, entitled The Seven Sins of Greenwashing (a follow up to the 2007 report, The Six Sins of Greenwashing) has revealed that the number of products making environmental claims has increased by an average of 79 percent in stores visited in 2007 and 2008, and 98 percent of products commit at least one of the Sins of Greenwashing highlighted in the report

TerraChoice researchers investigated retailers in the US, UK, Australia and Canada in November 2008 and January 2009, with instructions to record all Read more