Wallet Mouth

Cancer warning to appear on "natural" labels?

Think your "green" soap is squeaky-clean? Maybe not. The California Attorney General's Office has filed a complaint against four makers of green-branded personal-care and cleaning products, stating that they are violating the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65)—and the state's unfair-competition law, to boot.

Products made by Avalon Organics (owner of the Alba brand), Beaumont (Citrus Magic), NutriBiotic, and Whole Foods (specifically, its private-label brand, 365) were recently found to contain the toxic contaminant 1,4 dioxane (which I've blogged about before). The AG's suit states that the companies have known that their products were exposing users to 1,4-dioxane since late May of 2004, yet they did not provide "a clear and reasonable warning," as required by law. Violations of the safety law and the unfair-competition law each carry penalties of $2,500 a day.

1,4-dioxane is not an ingredient per se but rather a by-product of a process called ethoxylation.

Citrus Magic 100% Natural Dish Liquid is the product with by far the highest level of the contaminant (97.1 parts per million), according to the Organic Consumers Association's study (whose results, according to my sources, were confirmed by tests the AG's office had done). NutriBiotic's Super Shower Gel Shampoo with GSE was found to contain 32.2ppm, Alba's Passion Fruit Body Wash contains 18.2ppm, and Whole Foods' 365 Everyday Value Shower Gel contains 20.1ppm.

Some contend that a little bit of dioxane probably isn't anything to worry about (specifically, TreeHugger writer Karin Kloosterman in this post, and Ecover, whose dishwashing liquid was found to have 2.4ppm). For context, I looked at the EPA's webpage on the chemical. There, I learned that 500ppm is the ceiling recommended by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health to avoid "immediate damage to life or health," and that according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 100ppm is the concentration to which most workers can be exposed without adverse effects "over a normal 8-h workday or a 40-h workweek" (which? I wondered).

One can't help but observe that 100ppm is pretty close to the 97.1ppm in Citrus Magic... but fortunately, even with my exacting standards, I don't (quite) spend eight hours a day scrubbing our dishes.

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...

Soapmaker sues to keep 'organic' claim clean

Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps today filed suit under California’s Unfair Competition Law against 10 makers of personal-care products for allegedly using the term “organic” in a deceptive way. The “cheater brands” named in the lawsuit include Avalon Organics, Aveda, Jason, Kiss My Face, and Nature’s Gate.

Dr. Bronner’s products—which include the nation’s top-selling natural brand of liquid soap, as well as lotions, hair rinses, shaving gels, and balms—sport USDA-certified “Organic” and “Made with Organic” seals. are USDA-certified, either to the “Made with organic ingredients” level (for which at least 70 percent of the product must be organic material, excluding water and salt) or to the “Organic” level (at least 95 percent must be organic material, excluding water and salt).

The use of the term “organic” for personal-care products is contentious. Historically, an anything-goes climate prevailed over the sector, since there were no standards governing the “organic” claim for such products. That changed in 2005, when the USDA issued a memorandum clarifying that its National Organic Program did indeed apply to personal-care products that are made up of organic agricultural content.  personal-care products made up of organic agricultural content could be USDA-certified according to its National Organic Program. (They are not required to be, however.)

So now the question is, under what circumstances can the term “organic” be used for personal-care products that don’t adhere to USDA standards? And is it permissible for companies to use the word “organic” in their brand or slogans (as does Avalon Organics, for example) when their products aren’t necessarily organic in the true sense of the word (whatever that may be)?

The press release drops a lot of science, but the basic complaint is that the main cleansing ingredients in the soaps, shampoos, and body washes made by Dr. Bronner’s so-called organic competitors come from conventional (as in nonorganic) agricultural material produced with synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, and often contain petrochemical compounds. The release cites as an example the brand Jason (whose slogan is “Pure, Natural & Organic”) and its use of sodium myreth sulfate, “which involves ... the carcinogenic petrochemical Ethylene Oxide, which produces caricinogenic 1,4-Dioxane as a contaminant.”

Reasonable consumers, the suit contends, expect cleansing ingredients in “organic” personal-care products to be made from organic (not conventional) agricultural material, to be produced without synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides, and to be free of petrochemical compounds.

Dr. Bronner’s vice president Mike Bronner told me that one thing organic doesn’t mean is the common practice of the targeted brands of using hydrosols and floral waters, which he equates to “dropping a tea bag of organic material into tap water—and the product is 85 percent water anyway—and than calling that organic, when the other 15 percent contains petrochemicals.”

Now, back to this issue of standards in the personal-care sector. Just last month, a new standard for personal-care products was announced: OASIS (Organic and Sustainable Industry Standards). OASIS is also named in the Dr. Bronner’s lawsuit, which seeks to prohibit it from certifying personal-care products as “organic” because it allows for hydrogenation, sulfation, synthetic petrochemicals, and for cleansing ingredients to be made from nonorganic material.

More on OASIS later this week.

I’ll end this post with the full list of brands named in the suit:

Avalon Organics and Jason (owned by Hain Celestial)
Aveda (Estee Lauder)
Desert Essence Organics (Country Life)
Giovanni
Head Organics (Cosway)
Ikove (Florestas)
Juice Beauty
Kiss My Face
Nature’s Gate (Levlad)
Stella McCartney

Envious on Earth Day, or, The limits of pocketbook activism

Do you ever feel like you’re in the Twilight Zone? Between learning about all this BPA stuff and finishing the book Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry, I’m having a touch of reality disconnect. 

You see, most of the time when I blog about the unsavory side of commerce, it has to do with the environment or labor abuses—stuff that’s “out there”—not physical harm that potentially threatens me personally, as well as my loved ones and most everyone else who lives in the U.S.A. Yet here is Stacy Malkan’s book, a well-written account of how most mainstream cosmetics and personal-care products are contributing to pollution “in here”—inside our bodies, women and men alike—and how nobody is protecting us from this contamination, because the industry polices itself. (And it polices itself without concern for the long-term health effects of chemicals, testing only for short-term things like skin irritation.)

I’ve blogged about this issue before, in the context of the Environmental Working Group’s helpful Skin Deep online database (which is discussed in the book). But as I read the screed, the surreality of the situation really started to sink in. After all, these are normal, familiar products that have been sold on the shelves of normal, familiar stores for years and years. Are we all crazy? 

Thankfully, there’s a reality check: the fact that the European Union has banned scads of chemicals regularly in use in the U.S. (and not just in cosmetics, by the way) through its Cosmetics Directive and REACH legislation—both reflections of Europe’s embrace of the precautionary principle. Why, oh why, can’t the U.S. get hip to this eminently reasonable approach? Here’s where my EU envy starts to kick in with a vengeance (Down, EU envy! Down!). 

Of course, it’s not really about where you are. A couple years ago, I spent an afternoon on a gem of a beach in a Mexican eco-reserve that was stunning—except for the waves of garbage that came in with the tide. My sister, Mr. Wallet Mouth, and I made a game of collecting the trash and putting it in a neat pile on shore so that the people who ran the place could have it taken away. Then we found out from them that there wasn’t any “away” where it could be disposed of. This happens every day, they told us. The litter rides in on currents from places as far away as Australia and China. It was a good reminder that the world isn’t such a big place after all, that you can’t necessarily escape the ills of one region by traveling to another.

It’s the same thing with chemicals. Once they’re let loose in the world, we can’t avoid them—a point Not Just a Pretty Face drives home with its opening anecdote about a 2004 study in which randomly selected newborn babies in the U.S. were found to have hundreds of toxic chemicals in their blood.

So on this Earth Day, I’m contemplating the limits of pocketbook activism. It’s simply not always enough. We need to actively pressure companies to do the right thing and actively pressure our government to strengthen its regulatory muscle to keep us and our environment safe.

Since when did “organic” mean “contains toxic chemical”?

Last Friday was a bad day for the natural-products industry. At the sector’s ExpoWest trade show, it was announced that a new study found a number of supposedly “natural” and “organic” body-care and cleaning products contain a nasty chemical called 1,4-dioxane (which the EPA classifies as a “probable human carcinogen”) that you won’t see on the ingredients list. (You can read the L.A. Times’ coverage of it here.)

Giovanni Organic Cosmetics, Jason (whose slogan is “Pure, Natural & Organic”), Kiss My Face, Nature’s Gate, and Seventh Generation were among the leading brands called out in the study, which was commissioned by the Organic Consumers Association.

To Seventh Generation’s credit, it has said that it intends to “completely eliminate 1,4-dioxane from all of our products.”

A couple months ago I blogged about learning that a lotion I’ve used for years contains toxins. But that was a conventional product. Wouldn’t you think that skin softeners with the words “natural” and “organic” would tend to be clean? Look at the study’s product list (pdf) and see for yourself.

Some people will probably say, Sure, this chemical isn’t ideal, but we’re talking parts per million here—how bad can that be? But as Adam Eidinger of the Organic Consumer Association pointed out to me, the EPA’s standard for safe drinking water is 3 parts per billion. “Granted, you’re not drinking these things, but you are putting them down the drain and introducing it into the environment,” he said. Not to mention absorbing their ingredients through your skin (pdf).

Here are some tips from the OCA on how to avoid 1,4-dioxane.

Get the skinny on skin-care products

I just learned that the lotion I’ve been using every day for years is hazardous to my health.

The culprit is probably the 11th ingredient, triethanolamine, which according to the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep cosmetic safety database is toxic to human skin and respiratory and immune systems—and may be carcinogenic, to boot.

It could also be any of the other inscrutable ingredients, but in any case, I’m not buying any more fragrance-free Lubriderm. Especially since, as I also learned from Skin Deep, the manufacturer of the moisturizer, Pfizer, conducts animal testing and has not signed the Compact for Safe Cosmetics, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics’ pledge that represents a promise to meet European Union standards prohibiting the use of chemicals known or strongly suspected of causing cancer, mutations, or birth defects.

And why, you may wonder, is an American public-interest group encouraging the use of European standards? 

Because we don’t have any.

Yep, that’s right. Our government (specifically, the Food and Drug Administration) does not require cosmetics and personal-care products to be tested before they are put on the market. Given that the skin is the largest, most permeable organ in the human body, that strikes me as insane.

I encourage everyone to check out Skin Deep—but be warned: you may not like what you learn. It’s a great site, though, because it gives you healthier alternatives to the same type of product you’re investigating. There’s also a guide to children’s products, which I suspect I’ll be using more and more often in the months to come.

I also recommend spending some time on the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics’ site, which has links to stories with headlines like “Mercury in Mascara” and “Lead in Lipsticks.”

Happy horror-finding. And remember, if you ever encounter 2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol in a dark alley (or in your body wash), run the other way!

Blowing it: Kleenex destroys virgin forests; bears outraged

Mwoumph!! Link. [paw swipe] Grrrrromph, snort! Link.

Current events

Yesterday I attended a Tom’s of Maine press briefing on the company’s new Rivers Awareness Partnership, in which it will donate $1 million over five years to two nonprofits focusing on riparian issues.

It was a small, feel-good affair that gave American Rivers and the River Network a chance to talk about their laudable work, and it let Tom Chappell, a friendly fellow who resembles a more approachable John Kerry, describe how the grant is the outgrowth of his company’s long-held commitment to social and environmental responsibility: “Better values build better value,” etc.

One reason I went to the event is that the company’s acquisition by Colgate-Palmolive in 2006 was one of the things that led me to start this blog. I’d already become interested in corporate parentage and buyouts, but when that purchase happened, it put a real bee in my bonnet—perhaps because Tom’s was the first green brand I ever encountered, thanks to a college roommate who used the toothpaste.

Why shouldn’t the label on my Cinnamint tube be required to say, “A Colgate-Palmolive brand”? It’s a disservice to consumers, who are understandably skeptical of multinational corporations, that companies are not (and are not coerced to be) completely open about such information.

This opacity is particularly irksome when it’s companies or brands that base their appeal on progressive values that fail to volunteer this information freely. Consider Odwalla, now owned by Coca-Cola: unlike Tom’s, its website contains no disclosure or acknowledgment of its acquisition—even in the homespun “Who We Are” and “History” sections.

I felt Chappell out—not about the labeling question specifically, since that was off-topic, but about the ownership issue. I asked him whether the ability to give the rivers grant came in part from being owned by Colgate-Palmolive, and what the negatives and positives of the arrangement had been so far in the context of the company’s mission.

“They respect our values,” he replied. “They’re our biggest supporters.” And no, the grant had nothing to do with the Colgate partnership, as Chappell put it—Tom’s level of charitable giving hasn’t changed. He characterized Colgate-Palmolive as having principles similar to those of his company, and added that “if we don’t bring our values to scale, we won’t succeed.”

I hadn’t done my homework on Colgate-Palmolive before the briefing, alas, but I can tell you now that the company has been criticized for its environmental reporting, its use of animal testing, and its role years ago in polluting the Chemsol Superfund site. It gets a middle-of-the-road rating of 40 from Climate Counts, which describes it as being “at an early stage of addressing climate change,” a “poor” score of 5 from Ethiscore, and a neutral-to-negative rating from Knowmore.org.

To be fair, that’s Colgate’s record, not Tom’s. The latter company has pretty unimpeachable green credentials; indeed, it has been a leader in the sustainable-business world, and it seems—so far, at least—to be operating autonomously from its corporate parent. I still use Tom’s toothpaste. But guilt by association is all it takes for some people to stop buying your product.

As my parents always told me, be careful of the company you keep.

Pondering Anita Roddick’s legacy

I don’t think I’ve ever bought anything from the Body Shop. In fact, I remember being turned off by the overpowering fog of fragrance that emanated from the first location of the store that I noticed.

But I recall being impressed by reports I’d hear over the years about the environmental and social consciousness of Body Shop founder Dame Anita Roddick, who died yesterday after suffering a brain hemorrhage, and how she sought to have the company reflect and embody her ideals. (Roddick championed rainforests, opposed animal testing, crusaded for the rights of indigenous peoples and initiated trade agreements with them ... the list goes on.)

The company has also seen its share of denouncements, with critics arguing that it has not lived up to its stated ethics (one such critic, Jon Entine, has published a number of articles on the subject).

Last year, the Body Shop’s sale to cosmetics powerhouse L’Oréal—which uses animal testing and one-quarter of which is owned by corporate persona non grata Nestlé—heralded a drop in popularity for the company and prompted boycott calls. Ethiscore gives the Body Shop a “very poor” rating of 4.5 out of 20, citing the retailer’s “profiteering from pollution” and its use of potentially harmful chemicals and ingredients tested on animals.

Still, reading Roddick’s obits today, I couldn’t help but feel inspired by her life and work. She was clearly a passionate woman who genuinely cared about the causes she publicized; she was blogging about one of those causes, the situation of the American prisoners known as the Angola Three, on her site as recently as five days ago.

Whether or not the Body Shop ultimately betrayed its ideals, Dame Anita Roddick was a pioneer who succeeded in getting the notion that businesses can be ethical as well as profitable on much of the world’s radar. She helped create the conditions and momentum for much of the fine work being done today in the realm of responsible consumerism. And for that, I am thankful.

Pangea deserves props for unabashed support of fair labor

What a great feeling to find an e-commerce site that states in big letters on its home page that it sells “only goods made in countries where labor laws or unions are in place to protect the workers! We don’t sell any products made in China or other countries known for sweatshops.”

The site is Pangea, a.k.a. the Vegan Store. I’m not a vegan, but I buy vegan shoes (and avoid leather in general) because of my deep antipathy toward industrial cattle operations and their harmful effects on the environment. Plus, quite frankly, I feel bad for the cows.

Pangea sells not only shoes but all sorts of things: cleaning products, pet supplies, cruelty-free cosmetics and body care, etc.

How does it vet its merchandise? I traded email with Pangea employee Phil, who told me that the company’s main source of information is its founder, Shari Kalina. “Over the past 11 years she’s had to do so much research and have so many discussions with various experts that she has probably learned more than can be found at any single website,” he wrote. “For any unfamiliar ingredient, she’ll use the internet as a starting point and then get in touch with as many people as necessary for us to be confident about the ingredient.”

Which tells me that Pangea must be a pretty small operation. But it’s one I’m happy to support. In fact, I’m eyeing a pair of red No Sweat high-tops right now...