The thin green line, part 1

Most people are familiar with the concept of organic food. We may be vague on the details, but we know in a general way that for a higher price, we can buy an assurance that pesticides and other chemicals that could harm us or the environment were not used in its production. Every time we pay that premium, we vote with our wallets. 

But the effects of that choice are not as simple as supporting the producers we buy from. Our votes are also changing the marketplace. The extra money consumers are willing to spend on organic products has created a "green rush" that goes beyond food. As you have no doubt noticed, the word "organic" is popping up in other product categories as well. Perhaps you've bought an organic cotton shirt, for example, or organic shampoo. 

But hold on. I would like to pause here to ask you to think about something. 

What, exactly, does it mean to you for a shampoo to be organic? Can you think of things that you would expect to be in it—or, more important, not to be in it? 

Until as recently as 2005, the use of the word "organic" in the U.S. personal-care product area was meaningless, since no one regulated it at all. Today, no less than three certification standards are positioning themselves in the sector, each with a different set of rules and a different appeal to authority. 

This is the first in a series of posts relaying what I've been able to learn about this corner of the organic standards landscape. 

As I mentioned in a recent post, starting in 2005, personal-care products were allowed to be certified to the USDA's National Organic Program. In March, another organic certification was announced, and there's a bit of a controversy swirling around it. 

The label is called OASIS (for Organic and Sustainable Industry Standards), and it was launched by a trade association of the same name that includes big industry players such as Estee Lauder, Hain Celestial, and L'Oreal, as well as a number of smaller brands. 

The new certification is based on two principles, according to its standards (downloadable on the website): "to promote the increased use of organic raw materials to make the ingredient building blocks of Health and Beauty Products" and "to exclude chemistry that results in non-sustainable products wherever possible." In order to bear the OASIS "Organic" seal, products must contain at least 85 percent organically produced agricultural material, excluding water and salt. That percentage is slated to rise to 90 in 2010 and to 95 in 2012. 

As I mentioned in my post, OASIS is named in a lawsuit filed on April 28 by Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, which contends that the certification constitutes false advertising, since it allows for cleansing agents made from nonorganic ingredients that have been hydrogenated and/or sulfated and preserved with synthetic petrochemicals. (Disclosure: I have met and socialized with Dr. Bronner's president David Bronner and vice president Mike Bronner.) 

"The whole deal with organic is getting away from 'better living through chemistry,'" David Bronner told me. Companies that hydrogenate but want to call their products organic should "figure out some other way to extend shelf life. There are other ways. You look at your concentrations, your pH, the synergies between ingredients, your packaging. You have to think outside the box." His company's soaps, he pointed out, are self-preserving because of their concentrations. 

Bronner is the first to admit that soap, by its very nature, involves a chemical reaction (albeit an ancient one) and can therefore never hope to have an organic percentage higher than the low 80s. That's why his soaps are USDA certified only to the "Made with organic [ingredients]" level, which requires at least 70 percent organic material, rather than to the full-on "Organic" level, which requires 95 percent. However, other Dr. Bronner's products—lotions, balms, etc.—do achieve the 95 percent threshold. Bronner believes that OASIS's more permissive standard misleads consumers and waters down the meaning of the word "organic." 

Of course, that's not how OASIS sees it. For starters, OASIS co-chair Gay Timmons told me, the USDA's National Organic Program certification was designed for food, not personal-care products. When it comes to the stuff that we put in our hair and rub onto our bodies, "most people want an effect. They want personal-care products to function a certain way," she said. The implication being that such functionality is incompatible with the standards of the NOP—which, she said, "knows about farmers and livestock. Nobody there knows diddly about cosmetic chemistry." 

Again that word: chemistry. Central to OASIS's philosophy is the idea that there is good chemistry and bad chemistry, Timmons told me, referring to the "green-chemistry" principles outlined by Paul Anastas and John Warner in their book Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice. "Every process we use has to be something that doesn't cause environmental degradation," she said. "If it's safe for the environment, it's safe for consumers." 

But is it organic? 

To be continued...